


The Eyebrow Nazi and the Neanderthal

by lifeisrandom34



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Language, Gen, Humor, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeisrandom34/pseuds/lifeisrandom34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me just tell you one thing, Eduardo, and this is important: Mark Zuckerberg is very smart. Admirably so. But the fact that he is brilliant does not make the rest of us stupid."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyebrow Nazi and the Neanderthal

Now is the moment when Erica’s brilliant plan stops being quite so…brilliant. Well, if Eduardo is being fair, this portion wasn’t necessarily Erica’s fault. She probably didn’t even realize until the lawyers called her in to make her own contribution to Eduardo’s cry for recognition how heart-wrenching this would be. At the time her thoughts were only of revenge, not just for Eduardo, but for herself. She believed that where words and emotional outbursts had failed, the imposing sum of 600 million dollars might convince the untouchable Mark Zuckerberg that he—yes he—had done more damage in creating his little online haven than Dustin’s cramped wrists and a few sulking twins.

  
Honestly, Mark’s flustered response to Erica’s deposition was somewhat gratifying to Eduardo. He clearly did not like having his own words laid bare, ringing accusatorily around the shiny glass box of a room with all its well-groomed, well-educated inhabitants knowing exactly how damning they were. And, Eduardo reluctantly realized with a stab of pain somewhere in his sternum, maybe Mark still regretted losing Erica. Maybe that still hurt him. But he hadn’t betrayed Erica. He hadn’t been a very good boyfriend, sure, but he had not stabbed her in the back. Not like he did to Eduardo. And that, after all, was the point of this whole operation. Leave it to Mark Zuckerberg to learn the wrong lesson from being sued by his best friend.

  
The problem for Eduardo was that now that he was in the actual room with the actual lawyers and the actual Mark with the question “Why did you agree to help Mr. Zuckerberg when he came to you with the idea for The Facebook?” hanging in the air, he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. It’s not that he didn’t know the answer. No, of course not, that was the simplest question of all. It wasn’t about the popularity he and his friends stood to gain, it wasn’t about the potential money to be made, it wasn’t even about the excitement of a new adventure, a fun new way to spend his time that drew him towards Mark’s brilliant idea. It was the smile that tugged uncontrollably at Mark’s usually so well controlled features as he said “Wardo, it’s like a final club, but we’re the presidents” and the fire in those eyes, those ungodly blue eyes that burned despite the cold that was making Eduardo shiver in his stupid Hawaiian shirt. It was the pull that Eduardo felt to constantly do anything in his power to make those smiles and that fire appear as often as possible.

  
Later he found out that that pull has a name, but you can’t exactly tell a room full of stone faced lawyers that you made this stupid decision (and all the subsequent stupid decisions) because you were in love with your former best friend. So he mumbles out something about he and Mark being friends and wanting to be involved in something so potentially exhilarating. For Pete’s sake, he was in college at the time. He got excited about things like Caribbean night and the opportunity to get drunk in a “club” instead of on Chris’ couch for once. It wasn’t like he was difficult to please back then. He had been a happy guy once upon a time.

  
The legal types seem to buy it, but there’s a younger woman in the corner whose brown eyes linger on him a few moments longer than everyone else’s and Eduardo can’t help but wonder if she knows he’s lying. If she can see right through the slicked back hair and professional suit to the lovesick, hurting Harvard boy. The pressure of those eyes examining his face give Eduardo an uneasy feeling of déjà vu and all he can think of is the way Erica leaned across the counter at the coffee shop that first time and he knew that she knew.

  
It was the morning after the infamous Facemash debacle and the inhabitants of Kirkland 203 were exhausted. Chris was curled up in a chair, the familiar knot of nervous worry anytime Mark did something he and Eduardo would have to undo was furrowing his brow. Dustin and Billy were upside down and tangled together from passing out drunk and giddy. Eduardo himself wouldn’t have woken up if it hadn’t been for the pain of the belt buckle he’d fallen asleep on digging into his abdomen and the noise of someone tapping furiously away on a keyboard.

  
“You didn’t do enough damage this morning?” Eduardo asked the figure huddled over his computer in a mass of sweatshirt and adrenaline.

  
“Sorry?” Mark’s voice returned. He didn’t bother to turn around, lost in his world of coding.

  
Eduardo sat up, trying to straighten his clothes and blink the sleep (or relative lack thereof) out of his eyes.

  
“Have you slept yet?” There was no answer, “Mark, have you slept yet?” he shook Mark’s shoulder, knowing that he may have to physically drag Mark across the room in order to get any kind of reaction from him.

  
“You’re kidding, right?” the white glow emanating from his computer screen reflected off the bags under Marks eyes giving him a vaguely vampiric look. While, in true vampire fashion, it was not necessarily unattractive, healthy living people are not actually supposed to resemble the undead. Eduardo knew that about 8 beers and a can of tunafish was about all Mark had eaten in the last 24 hours and doubtless his mind had been racing all night as he sought to seek his revenge on his newly exed-girlfriend through snarky blog posts and illegal, albeit impressive feats of hacking and tomfoolery. Mark was exhausted and refusing to admit it.

  
Eduardo sighed and sunk back down onto the couch, giving up on trying to pry Mark away from his keyboard for the moment.  
“I know, I know, you’re too keyed up to sleep or whatever. I get it. I just…you know its okay to talk about what happened last night, right? I mean, the rest of guys are asleep. It’s just me.”

  
Mark’s fingers faltered for just a second. If he hadn’t spent so much time watching Mark work, Eduardo might not have noticed the slight hiccup in his movements. He considered it a victory. Most days this was the closest Mark ever got to outwardly expressing what was going on inside his head.

  
“What’s to talk about?” Mark’s words tumbled out, all tripping over one another in their attempt to cover up what was lying underneath, “I hacked a few facebooks, we rated some girls, we shut down the network, Dustin got wasted and informed us all in a voice that would give canines seizures that his “Hips Don’t Lie” and everyone went to sleep.”  
“Yes, everyone but you.”

  
“Yes.” Mark was stubbornly not looking up but his hands were still on the keys.

  
“And why is that?” Eduardo prodded.

  
“I wasn’t tired. I’m not, I’m still not tired.”

  
“Like Hell you’re not,” Eduardo stood up and walked around the desk so he could see Mark’s face, pale and drooping as he started to come down off his coding high. Eduardo raised an eyebrow and fixed Mark with his best “I’m-an-intuitive-south-ameircan-mindreader-and-also-your-best-friend-don’t-try-to-fool-me-with-your-bullshit-moço” look.

  
“What?” Mark protested, refusing to meet Eduardo’s eyes, “It’s like you just said, I was too keyed up to sleep, that’s all it was. God, Wardo, it’s not like I’ve never pulled an all-nighter before. I don’t understand why you always have to make such a big deal about-“

  
“Mark, what happened with Erica?” Eduardo interrupted, unable to keep from rolling his eyes just a little at the lengths that his best friend would go to in order to avoid talking about his feelings.

  
Mark’s face was impassive,

  
“We broke up.”

  
“Yes I know you broke up, we established that already. The entire campus knows that you broke up. I want to know why. Because even knowing, as—and I say this as your friend—as, you know, bad as you can sometimes be at reading social situations, I don’t think even you go around calling women bitches on the internet for no reason. That’s just…well, a little public for that sort of thing. Even for you. So, just tell me. What happened at the bar?” Eduardo was leaning forward now, earnestly trying to catch every flicker that passed over his best friends face.

  
“She didn’t sleep with the door guy.”

  
What?

  
“Did we think she had?” Sometimes Mark’s logic was difficult to follow.

  
“We’re underage, Wardo, of course I thought she slept with the door guy. Apparently not. Apparently his name is Bobby.”

  
Okay, the vast majority of the time Mark’s logic was hard to follow. Eduardo felt himself blinking stupidly, wondering if he had missed something or if Mark was more dangerously sleep deprived than he had previously thought. Clearly Eduardo would have to be a little more specific.

  
“Does Bobby the door guy figure prominently in this story?” he asked kindly, trying not to sound like he was making fun of Mark because if there’s one thing genius’ do not like it’s being patronized. The look Mark shot at Eduardo through his haphazard curls proved that he didn’t appreciate the tone anyway.

  
“Of course not, Wardo, and don’t think I don’t see through your roundabout way of trying to get me to spill all the dirty details or whatever. I know you too well. Your Latin charm may work on the Asian sluts at AEpi mixers, but I am not an Asian slut.” He stood up tentatively, straightening up stiffly and padding across his room to retrieve the slippers that had ended up under Dustin’s bed at some point during the previous evening.

  
Eduardo sighed, so close, and yet…

  
“Okay, fine, sorry. I’ll shelf the…latin charm. Though, for the record it works on more than Asian sluts. I just happen to LIKE Asian sluts,” he called across the dorm to Mark who was in the process of trying to brush his teeth without letting go of his death grip on the comforter he was wrapped up in.

  
“No shit,” Mark scoffed (the closest he ever really came to laughing) around a mouth full of toothpaste, “Who doesn’t?”

  
“You,” Eduardo responded, “Last I checked you liked Erica which brings us back to-“

  
“Fine!” Mark turned around, exasperated, “You want to know what happened with Erica? I’ll tell you what happened; we were at the bar talking about I don’t know final clubs and rowing and how apparently girls like cowboys, whatever. Bar talk, you know,”

  
Eduardo was positive that his bar talk, especially his on a date bar talk, was absolutely nothing like Mark’s, but he nodded encouragingly anyway because he was finally getting somewhere.

  
“And I guess I said some things that may have been offensive to her. Like, maybe more than usual, I don’t know. We were just talking about final club parties and all the sudden she was angry. Then I said something about her sleeping with the door guy whose name is Bobby and…then I may have said something about how she doesn’t need to study because she goes to BU, so she left.” Mark sank onto the couch, “She called me an asshole.”

  
The last part came out as more of a whisper which simultaneously alarmed Eduardo and made him want to wrap Mark up in a gigantic hug, comforter and all. He knew there had to be human emotion in there somewhere. Still, it’s not easy to see your best friend in pain and not be able to do anything about it. Eduardo was uncharacteristically unsure of what to say next. Unguarded Mark seemed so…young that Eduardo didn’t know quite how to proceed. He reached over to pat Mark’s shoulder,

  
“Hey, Mark, it’s okay. She…she shouldn’t have said that.”

  
Mark snorted and shrugged Eduardo’s hand away,

  
“I accused her of infidelity and broadcast her bra size on the internet. Of course she should have. You would have done the same thing and you know it,” Eduardo felt something pinch inside as Mark shook his head bitterly and muttered, “She’s right.”

  
“No,” Eduardo gripped Mark’s shoulder and turned so he was facing him, “No, Mark, look at me, THAT is not true. One bad experience with one girl does not mean you’re an asshole. I mean, going on drunken blogging rants might, and I feel like the vast majority of the females at Harvard might want your head on a stick right now, but, you’re not an asshole. I promise-“

  
“Wardo,” Mark’s voice betrayed his exhaustion as he dropped his head into his hands, “Stop. Just stop.”

  
Eduardo pulled his hand back, trying to fight the stinging in his eyes, or maybe it was his heart. It was always like this: Eduardo pushing for something and Mark pulling back, deeper and deeper until he felt like he would go mad with wanting to know what was going on under that absurd mop of curls. Every glace, every twitch of the fingers, every quick, wry little smile that passed over Mark’s lips tugged at Eduardo, threatening to make him collapse and he never, never knew what to do about it.

  
“I’m just trying to help,” he said, trying his best not to sound like a pouting child.

  
Mark stayed still for a moment and when he resurfaced his eyes were back to the impassive, detached icy blue that Eduardo had come to know and love.

  
“I know. But I don’t need a shoulder to cry on. I’m not a heartbroken fourteen year old girl. If you want to help, maybe you could go get coffee. I have a feeling I’m not going to be the only one with a hangover to nurse this morning,” Mark’s voice was steady again as he gestured to the snoring mass that was Dustin and Billy.

  
It bears noting that Eduardo didn’t necessarily like being ordered around by Mark like that. It was not his custom to go around pandering to all the needs of his friends like a servant. And he definitely did not consider himself at Mark’s beck and call. Not in the way that everyone else seemed to think anyway. He just…liked it when Mark was happy. Clearly making Mark UNhappy had its consequences since he tended toward big, worldwide displays of aggression and revenge but more than that, Eduardo felt that it was his job to make sure Mark was okay. Sure everyone else thought Mark was smart and impressive and felt themselves drawn to him just to see what crazy thing he might do next. But no one else seemed to think it was harmful that Mark rarely slept or ate with any regularity or changed his socks more than once a week. They assumed it was part of the eccentric brainiac package. Only Eduardo and possibly Erica had ever seen the need to care for Mark, and now that Erica was gone, well…

  
“Sure,” Eduardo sighed and hauled himself off the couch, grabbing his coat on the way out the door, “I’ll get you your usual.”

* * *

  
On paper, the story of Mark and Erica’s relationship had been kind of idyllic. They had met on one of the rare occasions that Mark actually left his dorm room freshman year. If Dustin is to believed, Mark had gone 24 hours without sleep to finish a last minute CS project that he had been putting off for weeks and was so relieved to be done that he decided to go for a walk and ambled into a quaint little coffee shop near downtown Boston that one Erica Albright had just been hired at. She had casually mentioned that he seemed like he “really needed the caffeine” and he had somehow managed to reply in a manner that did not immediately repulse her. They chatted over scones during the slow part of her shift and Mark returned day after day until the admittedly beautiful barista agreed to go on a date with him. And the rest, as Dustin has been known to sigh with little Disney-style hearts in his eyes, was history.

  
Of course when Mark was asked he would blush ever so slightly and mumble something like “she was hot and gave me free food” which makes Eduardo think that maybe Dustin had edited the story a little for his own pleasure. Either way, though, for as long as Eduardo had known Mark and the gang, they had never gotten their coffee anywhere other than the little shop where Erica still worked. Everyone sort of secretly cooed about Mark wanting to support his girlfriend though they were all equally aware that, in all honesty, he probably just didn’t want to bother finding somewhere else to go. The service was good, the coffee was fine, why bother going somewhere else?

  
Because of this, Eduardo stopped dead about five minutes into the short walk towards downtown realizing just how awkward a task he had just taken on. Erica was going to be working. Erica had just broken up with Mark and he had retaliated in spectacular fashion. He could expect some form of wrath coming his way. Not only that, but this was the first time he had been to the coffee shop without Mark. He had been thrown under the bus for the sake of caffeinated beverages.

  
Eduardo sighed and continued trudging on his way. Obviously Mark was in pain and didn’t want to see his ex-girlfriend right now. The least Eduardo could do was get his coffee for him. This was just being a good friend. Besides, the worst he imagined Erica doing (at least while she was on the clock) was deliberately misspelling the names on the cups. She had never struck Eduardo as the vindictive type. Granted, she had never had a reason to be in the time that he had known her, but she seemed generally sweet person from what he’d been able to tell. It was going to be fine.

  
Eduardo’s self-assurance wavered when he walked into the café. Erica, as he anticipated, was there sweeping methodically under the tables. Her eyes were staring steadily at the end of the broom. She didn’t seem to be making much of an effort to actually get the floor clean, more mindlessly working the broom back and forth as she stared blankly into space. It reminded Eduardo of the way he had done chores when he was younger; he would spend hours washing the windows in the hopes that by the time he got done it would be too dark to do the real job, which was usually mowing the lawn (in his defense, there were a lot of windows). But Erica’s “real job” was working the counter, interacting with people. She was great at it, usually, and had often remarked that it was the “only redeeming aspect of her job-aside from the money.” If she was trying to avoid that, then…Eduardo noticed the redness around her eyes and abruptly felt embarrassed. She was upset. Very upset. Maybe not “all BU girls are bitches” upset, but enough that her nice face was more of an exhausted face and Eduardo wanted to be literally anywhere but here. Maybe he could sneak out before she noticed him. Mark wouldn’t care if he got coffee from somewhere else, right? He wasn’t a man of discriminating taste, after all.

  
He waffled in the doorway for a few moments until an influx of middle-aged women chattering about what a “brisk fall day” it was shoved him further into the shop and attracted the attention of the girl with the broom. Her gaze zeroed in on Eduardo and for the first time since he was five and his cousin convinced him that the characters from Clue were real people coming to beat him to death with a candlestick in the conservatory, he feared for his life. But then she smiled, not her usual charming grin, the one Mark had always blushed sheepishly at when it was directed at him, but a sad, wan little upturn of the lips that didn’t reach the rest of her face. Her grip on the broom tightened as she shook her head slowly.

  
“I should have known. He got you to do his dirty work, huh?” she asked, not energetically enough to be called wryly, but to a point where Eduardo felt the need to defend himself.

  
“I’m just here for coffee,” he stated, “Nothing else.”

  
She smiled again, a little bigger this time, and began sweeping with more vigor,

  
“No peace treaty then?” her voice was gaining a little strength now.

  
“From Mark?” Eduardo scoffed, “You’re kidding, right?”

  
“Yeah, I’m kidding,” Erica sighed, “I am very aware of who I am dealing with.” She stabbed her broom at cobweb in the corner, “Though an apology would be nice.”

  
Eduardo shifted awkwardly from one foot to another, painfully aware that bearing an apology really is the way he should have come to her this morning. Mark had been very rude. Very hurt, supposedly, but very rude all the same.

  
“Um, yeah,” he mumbled, “I don’t think he’s really in an apologetic mood. Not that he’s ever in an apologetic mood, I think that goes against his personal philosophy. But, yeah, he didn’t really say he was sorry.”

  
“Oh I didn’t mean from him,” Erica spun around, having finally vanquished the stubborn dust bunny, “I meant from you, Saverin.”

  
His mouth dropped open like a cartoon character’s as he watched her march behind the counter and into the back room to put the broom away. Just what the hell was THAT supposed to mean? Sure, Eduardo’s best friend was really horrible at reading social cues and sometimes made really misogynistic decisions while drunk and-fine, Eduardo admitted it- he could be a bit of an asshat, but that didn’t mean his ex-girlfriend needed to condemn everyone who associated with him. Eduardo was nice! Really nice! Old ladies loved him! For that matter, he’d thought Erica liked him. Just…just…what the hell?

  
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded when Erica returned to the counter, apron on.

  
“It means, you overgrown Neanderthal, that I think you owe me an apology,” She had taken to comparing Eduardo to lesser life forms after it was established in a conversation (which took place during the monthly Dustin-Sanctioned Planet of the Apes marathon) that Eduardo’s eyebrows were “too big for his face but not big enough for his bush-baby eyes”. He hadn’t minded it until now.

  
“For what? What the hell did I do?” he demanded. This was a little more along the lines of the confrontation-style he was expecting. But he was at a loss for content. Mark calls her a bitch on his blog and somehow it’s Eduardo’s fault?

  
Erica crossed her arms and fixed him with a glare that would have sent Mark stammering into a 36 hour coding binge. He liked to code to avoid conflict. Actually, he coded to avoid any emotional stimulus. Chris was working with him on it.

  
“What did you do? What DID you do? Oh Eduardo,” she sneered, condescension personified, “I think you and I both know that the problem has never been with what you DID do. As far as I’m concerned you don’t DO anything. You have all the kinetic energy of a very hairy coat rack.”  
Eduardo slapped his hand over his forehead.

  
“Would you stop it with the eyebrow jokes? I CAN’T HELP HOW I WAS BORN.” He hadn’t meant to shout, but Erica matched his tone, decibel for decibel as she smacked her hands down on the counter and bellowed,

  
“AND I HAVE SMALL TITS SO I GUESS THE WORLD SUCKS ALL AROUND, DOESN’T IT, SAVERIN?”

  
Well that shut everybody up.

  
Like, literally everybody in the room was staring in their direction. Oops.

  
“Look,” Eduardo leaned in to avoid bringing the entire café into their spat, “just tell me what you want from me.”

  
Erica met his eyes. There was a challenge there.

  
“I want to you stand up for something for once in your life. Do you want to know what your problem is?”

  
Not really, Eduardo thought, but he intended to be polite.

  
“Please enlighten me.”

  
“Your problem is that you’re so concerned with being nice, with being whatever anyone wants you to be that you don’t ever end up DOING anything. A hint, Brow Boy, there’s a difference between being nice and being good. Good people don’t let their best friends treat other people like shit.”

  
Eduardo opened his mouth to protest, but she plowed on,

  
“Last night, for example, Mark took it upon himself to use his considerable intellectual abilities to call me a bitch and harass all the women of Harvard University because he was mad that I called him an asshole. Was that ridiculous? Sure. Was it unexpected? I certainly didn’t anticipate being unable to leave my dorm room all night for fear of having lingerie flung at me, so I guess he gets points for shock value, too. But, was it uncharacteristic of Mark Zuckerberg to throw a hissy fit because something didn’t go his way? No. And the world would have been disappointed by anything less. But, here’s my question, nice guy: why didn’t you stop him?”

  
“I…what?” He was having some trouble keeping up with her. Sometimes Mark and Erica were so much alike it was stunning.

  
“You know that what your best friend did last night was unethical, inappropriate, and for all intents and purposes, absolutely wrong, right?”

  
“Well…yeah, I mean, of course I do, I just-“

  
“So why didn’t you say anything, Eduardo? If you knew it was so wrong, why didn’t you stop him?”

  
Eduardo was relieved when another customer came up to the counter to ask for a refill and Erica had to stop to help her. He wasn’t sure where this conversation was supposed to be going. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He was a little too sleep deprived to have his moral reasoning called into question first thing in the morning. When Erica returned to where he was standing, brandishing a rag and a bottle of glass cleaner to keep up the pretense that she was actually working, he was too afraid to meet her eyes. All he could think of was the way Mark’s eyes had zeroed in on him when he walked into the suite last night, his fingers poised, ready for the equation that would bring his ideas to life. His skepticism hadn’t lasted more than seconds against those eyes.

  
“I read the whole thing, you know,” Erica finally told him as she scrubbed with faux intensity at the back of the dessert case, calmer than she had been before, “Stayed up until 4 am. It was like a car-wreck. I couldn’t look away. Little fucker has to document every second of his life, doesn’t he?” For the first time Eduardo sensed genuine sadness in her voice. He realized with a guilty jolt that this whole situation really MUST suck for her.

  
“I…I am sorry, Erica. It’s all so shitty,” he mumbled.

  
“Yeah,” she paused, “It is, isn’t it? Hey, can I ask you something?”

  
Eduardo nodded, wishing for all the world that he had just gone to a fucking Starbucks.

  
“What did he say to you?” Now it was her turn to refuse to look at him.

  
“What do you mean?”

  
“Well…’Eduardo’s here and he’ll have the missing link,’” she quoted, “You helped him with his stupid website, didn’t you? Gave him one of your magical weatherman algorithms or something. So…what did he say?”

  
Eduardo’s mouth was suddenly very dry. Yes, Mark and Erica WERE very much alike: always observant when he really, really didn’t want them to be. And now all he could hear was a chant of Wardo, I need you. Wardo, I need you. Wardo, I need you. Over and over and over…

  
“He said, um,” Eduardo cleared his throat, “He said he needed me. My help, that is.” There was no hiding the way his cheeks immediately turned the color of steamed lobsters. He wanted to disintegrate right on the spot. Worse than the embarrassment of saying it out loud, now he got to revel in the sight of Erica nodding sagely, a sly smile growing on her face for the first time since Eduardo had walked in.

  
“Oh, I see,” her smile grew to a smirk, “Well I guess that answers both questions, doesn’t it?”

  
“What? I-“ Eduardo tried to stutter out a defense. Fuck you Mark for making me come here I hope you die of dysentery. But there was no stopping Erica now.

  
“No no no, now I get it. If had been Dustin, or Billy, anyone else you would have been all over them for invasion of privacy and criminal levels of overreaction. But when it’s Mark…well, that’s a different story, isn’t it Wardo?”

  
A jolt to panic shot down Eduardo’s spine. She was getting dangerously close to a revelation that he was not ready to have, especially not in a fucking coffee shop at 9 am. This was not happening.

  
“I only did it because he’s my friend, okay?” he hissed, drawing close to the counter, “He was upset and I just wanted to help. That’s it. It has nothing to do with anything else. Got it?”  
Erica nodded slowly, just didn’t stop smirking.

  
“Oh I get it. In fact, I think I now get a lot of things. Suddenly everything makes a little more sense. But if you don’t want to talk then, whatever. Let me just tell you one thing, Eduardo, and this is important: Mark Zuckerberg is very smart. Admirably so. But the fact that he is brilliant does not make the rest of us stupid. Don’t let him treat you otherwise. You may have the hairline of a bear from hell, but you are not his pet.”

  
Again, Eduardo felt the need to protest, but he felt like that would only be hurting his case at this point. His head was throbbing and his friends were probably wondering where he was. He pulled away from the counter and began to walk toward the door.

  
“I will try to remember that. And sorry about last night.” He called back.

  
Erica shrugged,

  
“He’s a dick, you’re an idiot. Honestly, it’ll be good to be away from him for a while. Now go run back to your keeper, Neanderthal. I’m sure he’s wondering where you are.”  
“Go to Hell, Albright.”

  
“I’ll save you a spot, Saverin.”

  
The stupid bells on the door chimed as he shoved his way back out into the sunshine. It was a brisk fall day, so Eduardo walked quickly on his way back, stopping at a Starbucks when he realized that he hadn’t even managed to get the coffee he was sent out for. Who cares if it wasn’t what Mark wanted. He could suck it up.

  
When he finally made it back to the room Chris and Dustin were up. Dustin greeted his coffee like the second coming while Chris mumbled something about how it had “taken long enough, what did you walk to China for it?” Billy was lost somewhere under the comforter on Dustin’s bed, so Eduardo just left his on the nightstand. When Eduardo went to deposit Mark’s coffee, he mentally tried to form an excuse as to why he had brought back Starbucks instead of the usual. But it turned out he didn’t need to. Mark didn’t look away from his computer when Eduardo walked in and he took the coffee with a distracted “Thanks Wardo” and drank it with the disregard he gave to most of the sustenance he consumed.

  
Figures, Eduardo thought dejectedly, he doesn’t even know the difference.

* * *

  
Things calmed down somewhat after facemash. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that MARK calmed down after facemash and settled into a rut of coding and moping and throwing Cheetos at the back of Dustin’s head and then coding some more. It wasn’t clear to anyone else in the group exactly what Mark was working on all the time, not even to Dustin and Chris who knew way more about it than Eduardo did, just that he was working all the time. But even Eduardo knew that he was trying to lay low. The backlash from his little heartbroken stunt had been harsh. The administration had seized his blog, girls were passing him hate mail, and it seemed like everywhere he went suspicious eyes followed Mark Zuckerberg.

  
As for Eduardo, he spent the next few weeks trying his best not to think about his conversation with Erica. He put in place for himself a regimen of what he liked to think of as “aggressive indifference” when it came to the, uh, Mark situation. This mostly consisted of not actually being around Mark all that much. He threw himself headfirst into his classwork, spending more time than was strictly necessary on all his Econ problem sets and volunteered for basically every task any of his various clubs had to offer. For a half a second Eduardo thought that he had developed a work ethic even his father might approve of. Well, maybe not. But he definitely attracted the attention of the Phoenix Club, which was as good a substitute for Daddy’s love as anything else Eduardo had ever encountered. Which…okay, let’s not go there thanks.

  
The point is that the calendar reached November and Eduardo was feeling pretty good about himself. Not good enough to approach any of the girls standing clustered in a tight circle of Asian solidarity on the other side of the “dance floor” the venerable members of Alpha Epsilon Pi had halfheartedly created, but good enough to step out with the boys from Kirkland again. Granted, the threat of having projectiles lobbed at you by angry feminists was significantly lower when Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t with you, but there were still a few girls wandering around who recognized Eduardo and his friends. But tonight, with a piece of cardstock bearing his name and an invitation in the douchiest possible script still shoved in his pocket (just so he could take it out every few minutes to remind himself that HOLY SHIT I’VE BEEN PUNCHED BY THE PHOENIX) Eduardo was feeling pretty untouchable. Who cared that Mark was still a no show even if the party was already in “full swing” and he had pinky promised Dustin that he would actually come to this one (and Dustin took his pinky promises very seriously)? Not Eduardo. Eduardo didn’t care.

  
“So, where is Mark anyway?” he asked nonchalantly between sips of punch that was maybe possibly more vodka than punch at this point.

  
Chris and Dustin both eyed him enigmatically. Okay fine, Eduardo cared. But only because he had been PUNCHED BY THE GODDAMN PHOENIX CLUB and no one else was going to understand his enthusiasm about it. Chris and Dustin had nodded appreciatively, but neither of them really cared about the prestige of the clubs the way Mark and Eduardo did. That was the only reason Eduardo wanted to see Mark. Shut up Erica, yes it was.

  
“Who knows?” Chris replied, “He’s been his usual hermit self all week. I’m not even sure he’s still alive. He might just be running on Red Bull fumes at this point. Seriously, Wardo, I don’t think he even blinks when you’re not there to remind him of the importance of eye moisture.”

  
Dustin cackled,

  
“Yeah. Poor thing’s been so lost without his Mama Bear there to take care of him!”

  
Dustin reached up to ruffle Eduardo’s hair but was shoved away, because, really, how many hits could one’s man card take in one conversation? Eduardo also stole Dustin’s straw hat and planted it on his own head, firmly out of Dustin’s reach. Just because he could.

  
“Shut up, asshole. I am not letting you dickheads kill my buzz right now,” he scolded-no, not scolded, that’s something moms do-um, declared? Whatever, Eduardo would figure out semantics later. Now he wanted to figure out the names and possibly the phone numbers of at least one of the moderately sexy Asian chicks with bikinis on over their clothes standing across the room. Maybe all of them. He was definitely good looking enough for it, right? He didn’t own the entire line of Suave hair care products for nothing, after all. Chris was staring at him in a way that was entirely too sober and knowing than Eduardo could handle. He took another gulp of the vodka punch and turned away from his friends.

  
“So many Asian women here tonight,” He commented, because the best defense is a good offense and nothing bored Chris faster than talking about girls. Dustin on the other hand perked right up.

  
“Right? They must have heard about Brazilian bombshell Eduardo Saverin’s fetish for Oriental chicas and decided they needed to get them some South American spice,” he agreed, moving his hips in a way that was probably meant to convey “sex” but actually went farther in explaining why Dustin was still firmly in possession of his virginity.  
Chris rolled his eyes,

  
“Wow Dustin. I think you just managed to be racist on three different continents,” he muttered. The other two ignored him.

  
“It’s not that guys like me are generally attracted to Asian girls,” Eduardo explained, “It’s that Asian girls are generally attracted to guys like me.” And who was he to question their cultural practices?

  
“I’m developing an algorithm to define the connection between Jewish guys and Asian girls,” Dustin replied.

  
“I don’t think it’s that complicated,” Eduardo assured him, even though the math geek inside him really, really wanted to know what that algorithm would look like, “They’re hot, they’re smart, they’re not Jewish, and they can’t dance.”

  
Then Chris, in a tone that was infinitely more relieved than had ever before been used to speak this phrase, interrupted Dustin and Eduardo’s semi-drunken ramblings with,  
“Mark’s here!”

  
Eduardo glanced over toward the door. And fuck if a beam of light from the frat’s sad, wannabe disco ball (which they had going with all the overhead fluorescents still on, but whatever) didn’t hit Mark’s face right as Eduardo looked over lighting him up like fucking Cinderella arriving at the damn ball. Eduardo blinked. That had to be the alcohol talking. There is no way he should be comparing a scruffy 19 year old in a hoodie and flip flops to a princess. That was…but Mark was staring at him like looking at way would be the worst mistake and Eduardo was dancing over to him and now Mark was looking more concerned than intent but it didn’t matter because Eduardo was HAPPY and Mark was here and Eduardo had a piece of paper with his name on it that finally meant he was someone important and he didn’t really care if he really DID like the way Mark’s eyes managed to send heat through the places his blood was supposed to be.

  
Although, metaphorical warmth aside, it was fucking cold outside. Eduardo was having trouble concentrating on Mark’s words because he found himself sort of fascinated by the thing they were coming of. How had he never noticed Mark’s mouth before? More delicate than the usual hard set of his jaw would suggest, the teeth burrowing into the lower lip whenever he stopped to think. Suddenly Eduardo wasn’t quite as cold anymore, but his hands were still trembling. When his brain caught up with what Mark was saying he realized that Mark was asking him for help. Mark needed him. Well, Mark needed him a lot for everything from “hey grab that thing for me” to “do you know how this FAFSA thing works?” But this, this was different. This was real, something Mark cared about, something that was setting him on fire from the inside out, sending excited sparks out of his eyes. Eduardo had never seen Mark so excited about anything before. Of course he would help. Anything, Mark, just don’t stop looking at me like that.

  
It was almost enough that Mark’s offhand comment about “just a diversity thing” didn’t hurt.  
Almost.

* * *

  
Of course, he couldn’t stay drunk forever. In fact, by the time Eduardo staggered back to his dorm room after the party he was in the throes of a full-blown meltdown. The more he thought about it, the less he was about to blame his altered mental state for his reaction to Mark’s…well, to Mark.

  
It wasn’t like this was the first time Eduardo had maybe possibly thought a guy was attractive. Hell, he even had a frenzied make out session with some guy from his math class in a dark corner at a party in high school. Granted, that wasn’t exactly something he was going to bring up at Sunday dinner with his parents, but at least he was aware that that part of him existed. He preferred to think of himself in terms of sexual flexibility as opposed to picking any particular team to play for. And usually it wasn’t a problem.

  
But Mark? Seriously though, _Mark Zuckerberg?_ I mean, COME ON. The kid was basically on par with an extremely technologically advanced orangutan. His skills in social interaction and personal hygiene were rudimentary at best and he spent most of his time in public staring at other people in passive aggressive confusion. Feelings for someone like that would be ridiculous, but there they were, festering in the back of Eduardo’s mind. He couldn’t sleep with the knowledge that somewhere along the line his hormones had decided that getting into his best friend’s pants was a good direction for his life to take.

  
He realized as he paced the cramped confines of his dorm room that now would be a really good time to have a sassy female friend who could give him advice about how to handle this. But announcing to the women of Harvard that he had a crush on Mark Zuckerberg was definitely not an option. Announcing it to the men of Harvard was even less likely, though some like Chris and Dustin would probably be supportive at least. But no one would understand. He needed someone who would neither kill him nor try to cram him into a locker. Someone who would understand what it was like to feel so strongly for someone who—

  
Of course.

  
Eduardo fumbled through his pockets to find his phone. He scrolled frantically through his contacts for the number he needed. Finally he found her under the title “Eyebrow Nazi.” He opened up a text message and typed out

  
3:14am Eduardo: Okay fine. You were right about Mark. Wth am I supposed to do about this?  
Her response came a few minutes later:  
3:19am Eyebrow Nazi: I am not talking you through your gay crisis at 3 am Neanderthal.  
3:21am Eduardo: It’s not a gay crisis, it’s a Mark crisis.  
3:25am Eyebrow Nazi: Aren’t they all?  
3:29am Eduardo: I’m serious.  
3:34am Eyebrow Nazi: So am I. About sleeping. You should try it.  
3:37am Eduardo: I can’t sleep. What am I supposed to do?!  
3:40am Eyebrow Nazi: Sigh. What do you want to do?  
3:42am Eduardo: I don’t know  
3:46am Eyebrow Nazi: Congrats. UR already doing it.  
3:50am Eduardo: Erica.  
3:55am Eduardo: Please?  
4:00am Eduardo: Erica?  
9:30am Eyebrow Nazi: Relax. U’ll give urself and ulcer. I’ll be over in twenty minutes. We’re gonna talk gay love. Hope you like bagels.

* * *

  
The thing about Erica (well, ONE of the things about Erica) that had simultaneously attracted Mark and terrified him was how tenacious she could be. Once she was committed to something, she wasn’t going to let it go. He should have known that she would be serious about Eduardo exploring his feelings for Mark to their full extent, even if it meant literally showing up in his dorm room at 10 am, armed with her best knowing smirk and a half a dozen bagels of assorted flavors. Eduardo took a moment to thank God that he hadn’t decided to sleep naked. That really would have pushed the awkward factor over the top.

  
“Rough night in Bedrock?”  
And really, did she HAVE to start with the caveman jokes first thing in the morning? It was bad enough that she was clearly going to enjoy this.

  
“You could say that,” Eduardo grumbled, hoisting himself out of his tangle of sheets, “How did you get in here?”

  
“Your door was unlocked,” her smirk grew wider, “That’s really unsafe, Wardo. ANYONE could walk in! Honestly, I thought you Harvard boys were supposed to be smart.”

  
“Can we stow the sarcasm please?” Eduardo massaged his temples. The vodka was coming back to bite him.

  
Erica laughed and held the bag of bagels out to him,

  
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. You make it too easy sometimes. If it helps, I really am here to help you. Also, to mock your pain, but mostly to help.”

  
Eduardo glared at her with all the ferocity he could manage, but he still took a bagel. Free food was free food.

  
“So,” Erica began, leaning back in Eduardo’s desk chair, “You’ve finally realized that you’re totally and irrevocably in love with your best friend? I gotta say, it sure took you long enough.”

  
Eduardo nearly choked,

  
“I’m not in l-oh my God,” he sputtered. Erica’s eyebrows shot up,

  
“So, what? You want to bone him? You didn’t text me at 2 am because you two decided to be besties forever. What’s the problem?”

  
The problem was…well, the problem was that Mark was Mark and Eduardo was Eduardo and no matter how many feelings Eduardo oozed in his direction, Mark was never going to feel even the smallest increment of the same thing in return. Mark was machines and code and building websites instead of admitting he was hurt while Eduardo was latin charm and hands nervously running through his hair and always giving himself to those he loved. Not that he loved Mark. That would have been suicide.

  
“The problem is…I think about him ALL the time, right? And not the way I usually think about friends. Like…I worry about him constantly and I just…feel like my life would be easier if he was HERE, where I could see him, kind of…all the time.”

  
Eduardo was fairly certain that he was about to be forcibly expelled from all of manhood for uttering those words. He was blushing like a 7th grade girl as it was. But Erica seemed strangely charmed.

  
“Damn,” she said, “There’s a leash kid joke in there.”

  
Wait, did he say charmed? He meant malicious.

  
“Erica! Jesus Christ I thought you said you were going to help!” Eduardo yelped and smushed his face down into his pillow, willing his mattress to swallow him whole.

  
Erica laughed,

 

“Oh come ON, Saverin! God, you are the textbook definition of ‘no fun at all’! I am helping; you just don’t see it yet,”

  
She skipped across the room and dragged Eduardo up and grabbed his face between his hands,

  
“Eduardo. Come on,” She composed herself and stared at him dead in the eyes, “Okay. I’m sorry I offended you. I’m just trying to thicken your skin a little here because, seriously, your friendship with him is like a full time job that you don’t get paid for. I think that’s pretty sad, but that’s not really the issue here. My question is…do you just have all these melty, gooey warm fuzzies around him like you wanna move in together and go shopping at IKEA and play basketball in the driveway and have brunch with the neighbors or some shit, or do you actually want to…you know…do stuff?”

  
“Stuff?” Eduardo asked, trying not to be weirded out by the fact that she still had a death grip on his face.

  
“Sex, Neanderthal, I’m talking about sex. Do you have any kind of physical attraction towards Mark?”

  
Eduardo’s mind drifted back to his fairytale related epiphany the night before. The blue fire that lit up Mark’s eyes, Eduardo’s fascination with his lips as he talked and his hands as he typed and the heat that had flooded through him. Maybe it hadn’t just been the vodka. Oh boy…

  
Erica noticed Eduardo’s pensive hesitation and raised her eyebrows,

  
“Hey, Buddy, I’m not judging, I’ve sucked his cock too, remember?”

  
Eduardo squawked in response and attempted to cover his ears. She released his face and fell back on the bed laughing,

  
“Oh don’t be jealous, Wardo. You’re already kissing his ass constantly; it’s not even that far a stretch.”

  
“ERICA!”

  
“FINE. Sorry. Look,” she sat up, “Honestly, Wardo, from what I can tell you are the crowning champion of useless pining. The only way to get Mark’s attention is to smack him in the face with the fact that you’re attracted to him. Or give him free food. But I guess you already do that, so you’re probably going to have to smack him.”

  
“Or?” Eduardo groaned, hoping for a third option.

  
“Or you can keep pining and masturbating yourself to sleep every night,” she sighed, “But do you really want to just keep supplying him with money and approval when you could be supplying him with sweet, sweet loving instead?”

  
Eduardo paled at the thought of attempting to seduce Mark, possibly in the dim light of a laptop screen on a twin XL dorm mattress with star wars sheets, because there was no way he’d be able to coax Mark out on anything resembling an actual date. He could just imagine Mark’s blank stare as Eduardo fumbled around for the words or gestures that would make Mark responsive. If such things existed.

  
“You’re being pretty cavalier about this for Mark’s ex-girlfriend,” Eduardo commented, deciding that the topic of actual romantic contact with Mark was a little too overwhelming for the time being.

  
Erica shrugged,

  
“I’m his ex-girlfriend for a reason. I wouldn’t mind seeing him roasted over a spit or whatever, but you’ve always been good with him. I guess. If anyone can handle him, it’s you,” she rolled off of the bed and stood up, grabbing her coat off the chair, “If you ever decide to stop being ridiculous and actually talk to him about it, that is.”

  
Eduardo groaned and threw his arm over his face,

  
“I JUST had my sexual awakening last night. Isn’t there an adjustment period or something?”

  
Erica chuckled again, turning back to him on the way out the door,

  
“I don’t know, Neanderthal, is there?”

* * *

  
In a word: no. There wasn’t an adjustment period of any kind because the day after Mark’s big proposal he was apparently so full of zeal to get started that he had neglected to put on clothes. Although it might be more on point to say that Mark had neglected to do literally anything at all. Upon entering the Kirkland suite that afternoon (customary hangover remedy in hand) Eduardo was greeted by the sight of Mark, in nothing but a pair of boxers that may or may not have even belonged to him, bedhead still thoroughly in place, bent over in front of his desk, typing furiously. He couldn’t even be bothered to stop coding long enough to pull the damn chair out and sit.  
Eduardo chuckled and shook his head affectionately. He sure knew how to pick em.

  
“It’s amazing that he’s still alive, isn’t it?” he asked Dustin, who was flopped pathetically across the couch, hand thrown over his face to block out the light.

  
“Oh god, Wardo, make him stop. He’s been clacking away on that stupid thing since like 6 am. When I tried to pull him away he yelled at me. He’s gone feral, Wardo, I think he’s trying to summon Satan,” Dustin groaned.

  
A cheerful laugh emanated from the kitchenette and Chris emerged with a mug of tea which he handed to their incapacitated friend on the couch,

  
“You’ll have to excuse Dustin here, Eduardo. He had a little too much of the big kid punch last night.”

  
Dustin accepted the tea and shook his head at Chris’ patronizing tone,

  
“I’m serious, Chris. I think at one point I could see smells!”  
“You sure it was just vodka you had, bro?”  
“I don’t know, man, but I can feel it in my…everywhere.”  
Chris smiled and ruffled Dustin’s hair,  
“Where would you be without me, Moskovitz?”  
Dustin shook his head,  
“Probably dead in the gutter outside a Jewish Fraternity.”  
“What a way to go.”  
“Let’s be honest, Chris, dead outside a Jewish Fraternity is how it’s going to happen for me anyway. It’s fate.”  
“If you don’t stop taking drinks from mysterious strangers I don’t doubt it.”  
“She had the Starfleet symbol tattooed on her boob, Chris! I was powerless to resist!”

  
Chris groaned,

  
“Oh shut up and drink your tea.”

  
Once Eduardo was confident that his friends were back in working order (relatively speaking, Dustin was still flung across the couch like a he’d been struck by a spell of the vapors, but he’s helped himself to the last of Erica’s bagels so he couldn’t have been doing too bad), he turned his attention back to Mark. The other boy was still hunched over his desk, coding like his life depended on it. Eduardo couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

  
“Hey Mark?” Eduardo approached him cautiously. He didn’t need a replay of the post-Facemash frustration.

  
Mark didn’t look up. A small huff of breath was the only indication that he had even heard Eduardo speak. He wasn’t even wired in. When Mark went this deep into his own creative mind he didn’t need to be. He could shut everything else out just fine on by himself. But Eduardo, with Erica’s challenge fresh in his mind, was determined to be assertive. Just this once.

  
“Mark. Dude, come on, you can’t stand like that all day,”

  
Mark mumbled back something that sounded a lot like “Watch me”.

  
“Nope,” Eduardo said, reaching in front of Mark to flip the laptop closed. He then graciously chose not to comment on the literal squawk of indignation that came out of Mark’s mouth as Eduardo tried to pry his friend’s hands off the edge of the desk.

  
“Wardo!” Mark exclaimed, “I was in the middle of something!”

  
Eduardo rolled his eyes,

  
“And you saved it. I may not be a computer genius extraordinaire but I know what it means when you hit ctrl-s every two seconds.”

  
Mark’s blue eyes narrowed dangerously in Eduardo’s direction.

  
“This is important, Saverin.” Usually when Mark used someone’s last name it meant trouble, but seeing as he was pretty much naked and all of 5’8” to Eduardo’s 6’3” he had all the ferocity of a slightly grumpy cat. In fact, Eduardo rather liked that comparison.

  
“Yes, Mark, well so are pants,” Eduardo countered, trying not to smirk. Erica was right. This was kind of fun, “But that hasn’t seemed to have stopped you from subjecting your poor roommates to the sight of your scandalously clad ass sticking up in the air for the past six hours. Earth shattering website or not, there are certain things a man just can’t stand for and I think your thighs are among them.”

  
Eduardo’s words startled laughter from Chris and Dustin, who had given up on their own conversation in favor of watching the drama unfolding before them. For his part, Mark stared at Eduardo blankly, speechless. Perhaps it was time to admit that Eduardo didn’t really stand up to Mark as much as he should. He certainly wasn’t in the habit of drawing unnecessary attention to himself. He’d rather Mark just be accepting of his continuing pleasant, albeit bland existence than spurn on his anger. But, even Eduardo had to admit, he had Mark’s attention now. And he kind of liked the feeling.

  
Mark threw a puzzled glance over his shoulder as he ambled toward the shower which gave Eduardo an exhilarating, alien thrill. Erica had been very right indeed. He hoped this was going to be a permanent thing.

* * *

  
Of course, since this was Eduardo, and more importantly, since this was Mark, things couldn’t really be that easy. Where Eduardo wanted witty conversations and long nights spent sprawled on the couch watching Shark Week marathons until they collapsed into a sleepy pile of limbs (and beer if needed), there was instead snarky comments from a sleep-deprived programmer and a series of increasingly manic activities done in the name of Phoenix Club membership (“What is knowing a bunch of facts about some statue supposed to prove?” “It’s just a school tradition thing, Mark. I don’t know. It’s supposed to be fun” “Well, it’s stupid. Now shut up, I need to code”.) He was lucky if he got the bare minimum of his class work done, let alone had time to sweep Mark Zuckerberg off his feet. Somewhere along the line there were Bill Gates lectures and harried conversations about advertising and pretty girls flipping hair over their shoulders and the echoing slam of a bathroom stall door. Eduardo wasn’t sure if he had the strength to admit that the sound of Mark’s nervous giggles giving way to choked off gasps and moans was doing more for him than any of the pretty girl’s (Chrissy? Christine? Something like that) efforts below his belt. But he knew he didn’t have the strength to meet Erica’s eyes as she watched him and Mark leave like she didn’t have words for the disappointment she felt.

  
He didn’t know whether that disappointment was directed towards Mark or himself. But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. All roads led to BU, and to Eduardo tapping nervously on Erica’s dorm room door. It swung open to reveal Erica’s roommate (Eduardo thought her name was Casey. Or maybe it was Cassie. He was having trouble remembering C names today. Though, strangely enough remembered Alice, the name of the girl who had been, uh, entertaining Mark that evening. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to get that name out of his head). Well, whatever her name was, she was exhibiting a bitchface to rival even Chris’ when she saw who was knocking.

  
“Oh, look, Erica,” she drawled, spite dripping off of her every word, “It’s your knight in shining hair gel. Do you wanna kick his ass, or should I?”

  
Erica was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the room, a large biology textbook spread across her lap. She was still wearing the beanie. She glanced up at Eduardo only long enough to roll her eyes, and then she turned her attention back to her reading.

  
“What do you want, Eduardo? I’m kind of busy right now.” She asked, her voice eerily calm.

  
Eduardo wrung his hands helplessly for a moment before stuttering,

  
“Uh, I…I was hoping I could maybe…maybe talk to you, um,” he eyed the glaring roommate warily, “Alone, if that’s okay.”

  
Casey, or possibly Cassie, smirked a little at his trepidation and glanced back at Erica in askance. Erica sighed and shoved her book to the side.

  
“Yeah, sure, fine.”

  
Eduardo inched his way into the room past the roommate who was still looking at him like she was planning on sacrificing him to Satan, and then possibly making a suit out of his skin after. The other girl did not seem happy about being asked to leave, but she grabbed her coat off the back of a chair nonetheless and informed Erica that she was going to “go see what Sarah and Annie are up to.” Once she was gone the silence in the room grew thick. Eduardo couldn’t stop himself from pacing and twisting his fingers through his hair absently as he tried to think of a suitable way to start.

  
“I’m sorry,” is what he eventually settled on, even though he wasn’t entirely sure that apologizing even needed to be done. And if it did, whether he was the one who needed to do it. And if so, what for? But it seemed as good a conversation starter as any.

  
“For what?” Erica asked, her face still impassive, “Getting fucked in a bathroom? Because I’ll be honest, I think that’s pretty gross sanitation wise, but I don’t actually give a shit what you do with your own penis.”

  
Apparently she was in the mood to be blunt tonight. Eduardo floundered for another moment.

  
“No, no, not...not about that. That was just…that was stupid. I guess. It was whatever. I don’t know I just…I feel like I should apologize. To you. For…Mark, I guess.”  
Erica raised one eyebrow. The dim lighting from the desk lamp threw the angles of her face into high relief. She looked dangerous from Eduardo’s vantage point, even in her pajama pants and sweatshirt. It was making it hard to think.

  
“You want to apologize,” she repeated slowly, “For Mark.”

  
Eduardo nodded, swallowing hard,

  
“Yeah, I do. Because he should have. That’s what he should have done. And, and I didn’t stop him from…not doing that and I should have, so I’m sorry.”

  
Erica’s dark eyes narrowed as she stood up.

  
“You’re here to apologize for NOT stopping Mark from making an ass out of himself?”

  
“Well,” Eduardo paused for a moment, wondering if there were lines he was supposed to be reading between here, “Yeah. I mean, that’s what you said last time. You said I should apologize for not stopping Mark from being stupid. And tonight you looked at me like I completely let you down again. I know what disappointed looks like, Erica, and you were disappointed.”

  
“You think I’m disappointed because you eased up on babysitting duty? Wardo, Mark was being an arrogant jackass tonight and he looked like an idiot because of it. That’s justice as far as I’m concerned.”

  
Eduardo shook his head, not understanding,

  
“Then why did you look at me like that?” he demanded.

  
“Because you just…put up with it!” Erica threw up her hands in frustration, “You’re fucking in love with the guy and you’d rather get a half assed blow job in a bathroom stall-which EVERYONE could hear, by the way-from some chick who just wants you for your money than actually tell Mark how you feel! I’m disappointed, you moron, that you don’t even see what you could be doing. You shouldn’t apologize for Mark’s behavior, everyone knows he’s a desperate attention whore. For God’s sake he humiliated me in front of the entire universe and he’s STILL trying to get me to like him. But YOU, you could give him all the attention he needs! You could give him love and affection and maybe _just maybe_ he might have a fighting chance at being a decent fucking human being!”

  
The speech left Eduardo stunned. He didn’t accept the premise that Mark necessarily needed to be fixed in some way. Sure, the surly programmer was a little rough around the edges, but he wasn’t bad. But some small part of him couldn’t help wondering if maybe Erica was right. Maybe Mark did need Eduardo in some why. Maybe they really would be good for each other.

  
“I…I’m sorry,” he stammered, not knowing what to do with himself after Erica’s rant. She groaned and flopped backwards onto her bed, pulling the beret down over her eyes.  
“Jesus Christ, Wardo, you’re killing me,” she grumbled, “You don’t need to keep apologizing.”

  
“Oh. Sorry. I mean, not sorry. I-“ he could feel himself blushing even though Erica wasn’t even looking at him, “I just don’t know what to do.”

  
Erica peeked out from under the beret and fixed him with a stare,

  
“What do you mean?”

  
“I mean,” Eduardo bit his lip nervously, “I just…don’t know how to go about it. With Mark. I don’t know what to say or do or…anything really. How do you even let someone like Mark know that you like them…like that?”

  
Erica rolled her eyes once more and sat upright. Her long hair was falling around the sides of her face in matted tangles from the hat, but it didn’t make her look any less intimidating.

  
“All right, Romeo, I’m only going to walk you through this once. I really shouldn’t be telling you this at all because it feels a little like cheating. But, honestly, the pining is getting ridiculous. So, basically, once Mark goes on a coding binge, which I assume he has done,” Eduardo nodded, “there’s only one way to distract him. You have to go up behind him and find this one spot on his neck, right-“ Erica stood up and pressed her fingers into the hollow below Eduardo’s left ear, “-here.”

  
Eduardo could feel his face growing red as Erica’s hands brushed across his neck. It was hard to tell in the relative darkness, but he thought she might have been blushing a little bit too.

  
“And…and then what?” Eduardo asked, his voice a little rougher than he meant for it to be.

  
Erica sighed and pulled her hand again, breaking the tenseness of the moment,

  
“And then you put your mouth on it, dumbass. I know Mark has the social prowess of a brain dead gorilla, but even he can’t misinterpret another dude sucking on his neck.”  
Somehow, Eduardo managed to not expire on the spot, which was good considering that, embarrassment aside, it wasn’t a totally awful plan. Mark was so engrossed with thefacebook those days that he couldn’t be pulled away from his computer for food, or drink, or even to shower most days. But kissing? Well, maybe that might do the trick. Eduardo thanked Erica for her advice, even if could have been delivered in a better way. Like, pretty much any other way. She waved off his gratitude.

  
“It’s whatever,” she grumbled, “But you better fucking call me and let me know how this shit turns out.”

  
Eduardo promised to do so then took his leave. On the walk back Eduardo debated the relative merits of going back to his own dorm vs. just going over to Kirkland right then. Obviously his strongest skill was talking himself out of doing things that could have even the slightest chance of going wrong (his father called it “good business” but sometimes it felt a lot more like cowardice). If he didn’t do it now, with the memory of Mark’s euphoric gasps (and the overwhelming desire to not let anyone other than himself hear them ever again) still in his ears, he knew he probably never would. He…he could do it, right?

  
Eduardo’s feet scuff up against the bottom of a concrete step. His head snapped up and he couldn’t hold back his surprised chuckle. He’d been so wrapped up in his frantic listing of pros and cons that he hadn’t been paying attention to where he’d been walking. His feet had been taking him to Kirkland on autopilot. Eduardo decided to take this as a sign and ascended the familiar staircase, telling himself that his heart was racing because he was excited, not because he was scared shitless. To his credit, he only stood pacing outside the suite for like two minutes tops before pushing the door open, fully expecting to see Mark hunched up in front of his computer like always.

  
But that was not the scene in the Kirkland suite at all that evening. Not only was Mark not in front of his computer, but he was up, moving around the suite in a style that, had Eduardo not known better he would have described as “jumping with joy.” He seemed to be reacting to something on the sheet of computer paper he was clutching in his hands. The paper was wrinkled and twisted like Mark had been folding and refolding the edges for hours. When he heard the door, Mark spun to face Eduardo, grinning like a little kid whose parents had just told them they’re taking him to Disneyland.

  
“Wardo!” he exclaimed, “Jesus, where have you been? I’ve been texting you for like…I don’t know, hours or something.” He held the sheet of paper up to Eduardo’s face.  
“You’ll never guess who wants to meet with us.”

* * *

  
The fallout after the Sean-a-thon was…well, ugly would have been a step up. After the first night when Eduardo did everything in his power to convince Mark they didn’t need some overgrown party-boy man-child on their team, conversation between them dried up. He wasn’t making any headway. Mark had seen the sun and now he was blind to anything else. Even worse, he stopped letting Eduardo know what was going on. Right up until…

  
“It IS better to be accused of necrophilia.”

  
…yeah, that didn’t really help. And while we’re on the topic of things that didn’t help:

  
“Wait, so he’s actually going to California? Like…GOING going?” Erica was sprawled out on her back across Eduardo’s bed, which somewhere during the last few weeks of frantic consultations she had declared her spot, “Are you talking about the guy who can’t be bothered to walk down the hall to shower most days?”

  
Overall, Erica’s reaction to the whole “maybe possible object of Eduardo’s affection moving all the way across the damn United States” was not quite as extreme as Eduardo would have liked. Id and superego be damned, his whole brain was united in the strong desire to lock Mark in the closet just so he wouldn’t leave, especially not on the shoddy word from a would be playboy who IS DEFINITELY NOT NECESSARY TO THE SUCCESS OF FACEBOOK MARK OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING HIM by the way. Eduardo wanted to pace but there wasn’t enough room.

  
“Hey, calm down,” Erica reached out clumsily to grab him leg to make him stop moving. She flipped herself over the look at him right side up, “He can’t do anything without your help, right?”

  
Eduardo nodded.

  
“So don’t give him the money,” she told him, “He can’t go anywhere if he can’t afford it.”

  
She made it sound so easy. The problem was…the problem was that maybe in some small way Mark was right about this. Eduardo didn’t know much about the world of web development, but even he knew that the Silicon Valley was the place to be for this kind of opportunity. Mark needed to be around people who understood and appreciated his work, people who could help thefacebook-sorry, Facebook-be all that it could be. There was no place for him among the heavy oak conference tables and old money of the northeast.

  
But old school business what was Eduardo knew. Hell, it was pretty much ALL Eduardo knew. He had been trained since birth in the ways of schmoozing the elite face to face, in proving that he was a wise and trustworthy caregiver for bank accounts so legendary they were practically family heirlooms. It wasn’t that Eduardo wanted to end the party at 11. He just wasn’t sure that he and Mark were attending the same party at all. He was out of his depth, and his de facto impulse was to defer to Mark’s authority. Just because Sean had happened to be the first to suggest it didn’t necessarily mean it was a bad idea. Maybe.

  
Eduardo clutched his head in his hands. Life had been so much easier when all he had to worry about was Mark dying of scurvy.

  
“No,” he sighed, “No. I have to be a team player, Erica. Okay? If Mark says the company needs to move to California it needs to move to California.”

  
Erica scoffed disgustedly.

  
“Really now? And it has nothing to do with the fact that the company’s financial backbone may or may not want to bone its CEO?”

  
“No!” Eduardo glared at her, “It’s not about that. It’s about Facebook and what’s going to be best. Do you think I like the idea of sending it halfway around the fucking world?”  
“Well I may not have a fancy economics degree or anything, so I may be wrong here, but don’t businesses generally work better when their CFO isn’t living on the opposite coast from their headquarters?”

  
Erica’s question made Eduardo pause for a moment. She was right, of course, generally speaking. Upper management should be close at hand. Granted, it was the 21st century and Eduardo REALLY didn’t want to have to cancel all his plans for the summer just because Mark had decided to go west, young man. But, from an investment point of view it made sense. He should see what his money was going toward. And, well, there was Mark. Someone had to take care of him.  
Erica sat up completely, alarmed at the expression on Eduardo’s face.

  
“You’re not…you’re not seriously thinking of going with him, are you?” she stammered.

  
Was he?

  
“I…I mean…it…maybe,” He replied incoherently.

  
Erica stared,

  
“You can’t. You can’t do that. That’s crazy.”

  
Was it? Eduardo was really starting to think it wasn’t.

  
“You just said yourself that it wouldn’t make sense for Mark and me to be on different coasts.”

  
“Well yeah, but, I mean, he’s Mark. It’s not like he isn’t capable of checking in with you in literally every single electronic form known to man. Hell, he could probably build a program to beam messages directly into your brain if he really needed to.”

  
On the other hand, that WAS a good point. Eduardo had worked his ass off to get into the internship he had lined up in the city for the summer. His father had hammered into his head a million times: always have a back-up. Sometimes new businesses fail and you have to be able to weather the fall out in one piece. As much fun as it would be to lounge around in the California sunlight with a bunch of pasty programmers, that wasn’t necessarily what Eduardo would call “resume fodder.” It would be far better to keep his contingency plan intact. Right?

  
“Oh God,” Eduardo groaned and flopped onto the bed beside/kinda sorta on top of Erica, “Why is this so hard?” He demanded of his ceiling.

  
It was Erica who answered,

  
“Because you care. It’s always harder when you care,” her voice was almost gentle now and she was looking and Eduardo with those scary wise eyes of hers.

  
“What is?” he asked in a whisper.

  
“Everything,” she replied, laying her hand on his cheek.

  
They stayed like that for a moment, both of them thinking more than they should have. Eduardo’s mind was churning: to go or not to go? Could he stand a whole summer away from Mark? Could he stand the fact that Mark would probably be fine without him? He watched Erica’s breath flutter in the hair lying beside her mouth and wondered if that’s what she was thinking about too: how hard it is to know that someone doesn’t care as much about you as you care about them. How hard it is when that someone could change the whole world with just a few twitches of the finger. It was easy to feel inconsequential by comparison. Eduardo wondered if that’s why she was doing all this with him: just to show Mark that she wasn’t nothing, that she was worthy of respect, even from someone as great as him. Or maybe she was trying to prove it to herself. He wanted to tell her that she wasn’t nothing, that she deserved better than to feel like a specter in the dark past of a giant, but somehow the words wouldn’t come out when he looked into her eyes. It was just so much more than he knew how to verbalize.

  
In the end it was Erica who broke the silence.

  
“Do you think he’ll really go through with it?” she murmured.

  
Eduardo nodded. She sighed,

  
“What are you going to do?”

  
“I’m going to go to the intern thing and give him enough money to get him through the summer,”

  
“And then?”

  
Eduardo paused,

  
“And then I’ll get ready to go to New York.”

  
Erica nodded slowly.

  
“Thank God.”

  
They stayed curled up next to each other on Eduardo’s bed for an indeterminate amount of time before she sat up, whispering something about needing to get back to her dorm. She pressed a quick kiss onto Eduardo’s temple and then she was gone. Eduardo lay in bed for a few moments more, weirdly entranced by the feeling of a phantom hand cupping his cheek.

  
It was almost time for the interviews. Eduardo got out his checkbook.

* * *

  
Watching his friends pack and get ready to go to California was harder than Eduardo was willing to admit. Mark was mostly communicating in frustrated scowls at this point. Chris and Dustin on the other hand were being unerringly cheerful. Eduardo was having a difficult time deciding which one was worse.

  
"Someone needs to chaperone and make sure Chris doesn't go hook-up and get dude slime on my couch while I'm gone." Dustin told Eduardo as he haphazardly shoved T-shirts into a suitcase. It pained Eduardo to watch other people pack clothing, but trying to preach the importance of wrinkle reduction to Dustin was like trying to explain human interaction to an alien. Or, well, to Dustin. Chris rolled his eyes, pointedly ignoring Dustin's crudeness,

  
"Your couch?"

  
"Yeah," Dustin grinned, gesturing to the indent in the middle cushion, "My ass print, my couch. You could say we've grown close, this couch and I."

  
Dustin eyed the couch fondly, no doubt playing a montage of all his favorite video game binge moments in his head in tribute. Chris still wasn't amused.

  
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the way you're eyeing my furniture, Moskowitz. Wardo, back me up here." Eduardo was eyeing Mark's sullen form in the corner,

  
"I'm in favor of whatever keeps Dustin from using the phrase 'dude slime' ever again." He mumbled.

  
"NOTHING SHALL KEEP US APART MY LOVE!" Dustin crowed and flung himself onto the overstuffed monstrosity with glee.

  
“Dustin, dude, our flight literally leaves in an hour and a half. Stop dicking around and pack,” Mark snapped, shutting everyone in the room up. It was the first time he had ever encouraged promptness that any of them could remember. Chris raised his eyebrows in Eduardo’s direction as if to say _progress? Is our little boy growing up_? But Eduardo couldn’t bear to get enthusiastic at Mark’s sudden insistence upon time management given that it stemmed from his desire to get to California-and Sean- faster. Everyone had been trying to get Mark to be on time for literally anything since the day they had met him and Sean had managed it in one hour long dinner (which was ironic considering that Sean had been, of course, late). Eduardo dug his nails into the palms of his hands to keep from clawing his hair out. He was NOT going to be jealous of Sean Parker. This was about business, not…whatever.

  
Dustin rolled his eyes and dragged himself up off the couch.

  
“How come you’re not yelling at Chris?”

  
“Because I’m a responsible goddamn adult and packed in advance, you overgrown child,” Chris responded coolly, “Also I’m only bringing like two bags. I’m not staying the whole summer anyway.”

  
Dustin made a face,

  
“That’s stupid. You and Wardo are so lame. California is where it’s AT. What’s so important you guys have to stay back?” he pouted.

  
“A degree,” Chris replied at the same time that Eduardo said “Internship.”

  
Dustin sighed and made big, anime-sad eyes in his friends’ direction.

  
“My tragic, adulty-friends.”

  
Once Dustin finally managed to get all his Star Trek Original Series action figures inside his carry on and arranged to his satisfaction they were all ready to go. Chris went down to hail a cab to take them to the airport. Dustin followed him after giving Eduardo a quick hug and a chipper,

  
“You’re totally going to miss out, bro!”

  
Mark paused on his way out of the suite. His brow was wrinkled in concentration when he turned to face Eduardo. He was gnawing on his lower lip and Eduardo could tell he was trying to find one last way to have the conversation they’d had countless times in the previous weeks already.

  
“Wardo, seriously dude I think it would be better if you were with us.”

  
Eduardo smiled and shook his head, trying to avoid Mark’s eyes. It was hard to keep his resolve when Mark was intent like this. It was in Eduardo’s nature to give in to Mark. He tried to remember everything Erica had told him. You’re not his pet. He doesn’t get to have everything he wants from you.

  
“No, Mark, I need to stay here. It’s gonna be fine. You’ll e-mail me every day and tell me everything that’s going on. It’ll be fine, right?”

  
Mark shrugged, clearly frustrated that THIS happened to be the topic Eduardo was being stubborn about. But Eduardo was determined. Besides, he had plans to meet advertisers for New York. It wasn’t like he was abandoning Facebook for a whole summer.

  
“Yeah. I guess,” Mark was still frowning, “But you’re gonna come visit, right? You have to come visit.”

  
Eduardo grinned, clasping a hand on his best friend’s shoulder,

  
“Of course. Come on, Mark, what’s the worst that could happen in the next month?”

  
In retrospect, Eduardo soon came to realize, using that phrase is never, ever a good idea.

* * *

  
“What do you mean ‘get left behind’?” Eduardo lowered his voice and glowered at his best friend across the dimly lit hallway, “Mark, what did you mean?”

  
“I just,” Mark was suddenly very interested in the Red Vine he was twisting between his ever moving fingers, “Wardo, everyone is here, facebook is here. I know it wasn’t in the official business plan or whatever but that’s the way it is. And if you’re across the country then it’s like you don’t care about us-about this.”

 

Eduardo blinked, absolutely blown away by how Mark had so completely misheard everything he’d just said.

  
“Mark, I told you, I do care. I just said I-for Chrissakes, I’m the CFO!”

  
“And I’m the C _E_ O,” Mark was looking up again, the full force of his disconcerting stare concentrated on Eduardo, “And I’m saying what’s best for Facebook is for its CFO to be here.”

  
There was a different tone to this assertion: less petulant, more…he hesitated to use the word passionate because, come on, it was _just a goddamn website_. But at the time there wasn’t really any other. The confusion muddled Eduardo’s thoughts for a moment before he could scoff a reply properly express all the disdain he felt for the quaint little home Sean, Mark, and their merry band of programmers had created.

  
“Why? Better parties at Stanford? Cheaper drugs? Mark, what would I even do here? I don’t know anything about the West Coast, where would I even start?”

  
“Well, you could go with Sean and—“

  
And oh. Oh. Well, wasn’t that just like Mark? Honestly, Eduardo didn’t know what he had been expecting. Of course Mark wouldn’t want Eduardo there as a friend, or even as a businessman; he just wanted someone to babysit Sean and put on a pretty face for whoever the Prince of the Silicon Valley could manage to set up meetings with. And likely to keep him from spending all of Eduardo’s money on booze and strippers, going by the state of the house.

  
“No. No, forget it, Mark, I won’t work with him and you know it,” Eduardo shoved past Mark down the hallway, for once not caring if his supposed best friend was hurt or insulted.

  
A strange helplessness spasmed across Mark’s face for just a moment as he tried to grab Eduardo’s arm and restrain him,

  
“Wardo, if you would just trust me-“

  
“I did trust you,” Eduardo spat back, shaking his shoulder free, “Now I’m going back to New York.”

  
“No. Don’t go back to New York, Wardo, please, do not go back to-“

  
The pitch of Mark’s voice shot up like it always did when he was upset, and the words came out so fast that the hallway door had slammed shut, cutting off the pleas before Eduardo even registered them. He didn’t turn back. Instead he grabbed his suitcase and plunged back into the stormy night. At least he managed to hail a cab and get settled in the first hotel he found before he gave in to the shudders of blind panic.

* * *

  
It’s at least an hour before Eduardo can stop frantically pacing and clawing at fistful after fistful of his own hair just to have something to DO with his explosive energy, and wrap his brain around what had actually happened and, more importantly what he was going to do next. So, Mark wanted him to drop everything and come play partners with Sean fucking Parker. Sean Parker was a scheming, libidinous creep who seemed to hate Eduardo as much as Eduardo hated him. That idea was never going to work. In the real world there were rules and Sean took entirely too much joy in breaking them to be a good business partner in the long run. He might have had half of California eating out of the palm of his hand, but Eduardo didn’t for one second have faith in his ability to keep them there. Sean Parker was dangerous.

  
The problem was, so was Mark. Not in the same “time bomb ticking down run for cover before your arm gets forcibly amputated” kind of way. But time and time again Mark had proven that he didn’t care what people thought of him. Notoriety was better than no one paying attention at all. Sean’s exploits probably appealed to that side of Mark, the side that wanted to prove just how brilliant he could be, consequences be damned. For that they made a great team and Eduardo was willing to wait until this phase was over, and Facebook was really rolling. He was sure that then Mark wouldn’t need Sean anymore. Then everything would go back to the way it should be. Except…

  
Except Mark had said “get left behind.” Just what the hell did that mean?

  
Eduardo dug his phone out of his duffel bag and called Erica. She picked up on the fourth ring with a weary,

  
“It’s 4:30 in the fucking morning and I have work at 8 am, Saverin this better be pretty fucking good.”

  
“Shit,” Eduardo hadn’t realized how late it was. His body was so riddled with adrenaline he didn’t even remember he was supposed to be tired, “Fuck, Erica, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about—I’m sorry. I can call you back later.”

  
There was a rustling of sheets and a sound that could have been a sigh and then Erica replied,

  
“No, no. You wouldn’t be calling from Palo Alto unless something was very right or very wrong, and I know it can’t be the former because you sure don’t sound like you’re having mad, hot monkey sex with your best friend right now. So, talk, what happened?”

* * *

  
The group of guards followed Eduardo all the way out of the building. It seemed a little excessive considering that the last place in the entire world he wanted to be was _still inside of this hellhole._ When he re-emerged back out into the sunlight, however, he realized he didn’t really have any idea where he was supposed to go. He wasn’t scheduled to check into his hotel until much further into the evening and he didn’t know the first thing about the layout of Palo Alto. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, trying for all the world to remember whether or not it was socially acceptable to throw oneself into rush hour traffic head first.

  
The security guards stood awkwardly behind him like they weren’t sure if it would be responsible to unleash Eduardo back onto society at this point. One particularly large guard whose name tag read: “Randal” shuffled forward and asked,

  
“Is there anything we can do for you, Mr. Saverin? Do you need us to call someone for you?”

The words took a long time to travel from Eduardo’s eardrums to his brain. He stared at Randal’s face for a moment.

  
“I’m sorry?” The combination of general disorientation and the earth-shattering internal fight to maintain control of himself made Eduardo strangely polite. This did not seem to relax Randal any.

  
“Um. I said, can we do anything? To…help?” he sounded doubtful of his ability to do so, “It’s just that we got explicit instructions from Mr. Zuckerberg earlier that you were to be…you know, just in case…”

  
Randal’s voice petered out and oh—Oh—THAT woke Eduardo right up.

  
“No. no, of course not, I’m perfectly fine. I don’t need anything. It’s kind of you to offer, but no. Really,” he doled out false platitudes to the concerned security workers over the siren in his head wailing AMBUSH AMBUSH AMBUSH. His voice was too high to be convincing. _The lady doth protest too much. If there was ever a time for Shakespeare._

  
To prove his definite, absolute okayness, Eduardo immediately stepped towards the street to hail a cab. He tried to not be acutely aware of all the eyes peering down at him from the 23rd floor. He tried even harder not to be aware that none of them were Mark’s. That neither Mark nor his eyes wanted Eduardo as a part of Facebook anymore. As part of his life.

  
Oh God.

  
 _No, no_ , Eduardo tried scolding himself in his father’s voice, _There will be men who will try to undermine you. There will be those who wish to see you fail, no matter how intelligent you are or how hard you work. We must not listen to these men._

  
Eduardo flipped his phone open, just for something to do with his hands as he tried to figure out where to go from here. The taxi driver was headed in the general direction of his hotel, because Eduardo had to tell him to go somewhere. The remnants of Eduardo’s last text conversation were still on the screen.

  
2:15 am MARK: U still coming 2morrow?  
2: 17 am EDUARDO: Yup  
2:27 am MARK: I have something to tell you.  
2:28 am EDUARDO: What?  
2:52 am MARK: Nevermind. It’s not important rn.  
2:56 am EDUARDO: k. c u later.  
2:59 am MARK: yea

  
Eduardo felt something like a sob rising in his throat. He needed to get out. Out of this cab, out of this nightmarish city, out of this cycle of love and regret, out of his own head for God’s sake. He slammed his phone shut and tapped the glass barrier between him and the driver,

  
“Let me out here,” he barked.

  
The driver raised his eyebrows peevishly,

  
“This isn’t even close to where you told me to drop you off, buddy.”

  
“I know that. But I need to be let out.”

  
“Dude, we’re in the middle of a suburb. Where are you even going to go?”

  
“I don’t know!” Eduardo exploded, “Does it fucking matter? I will give you all of the money in my wallet if you let me out right now. Please.” Everything was dissolving. An earthquake was trembling through his bones, cracking him apart at the suchers and a small part of Eduardo’s barely functioning brain wondered if this was what an out of body experience felt like. He concluded that it wasn’t. People disconnected from themselves probably didn’t feel like every cell they called their own was screaming.

  
“Geeze, okay,” the cabbie grumbled as he pulled into the shoulder, “That’ll be-“

  
“I don’t care,” Eduardo cut him off, tossing all the bills he had on his person at the driver. Two $100 bills and a twenty.

  
The cabbie’s eyes widened,

  
“Holy Shit. Who ARE you?” he eyed the money suspiciously, like it might be fake.

  
“I’m no one,” Eduardo replied as he slammed the door shut behind him, “Absolutely fucking no one.”

  
And he ran.

  
He ran past the houses softly emitting light as the families inside sat down to dinner or to watch the evening news, past an elementary school, eerily empty for the weekend, he ran past convenience stores with cheerful staff and the confused stares from couples out walking their dogs because it didn’t matter if anyone thought he was strange. Nothing mattered, didn’t they see that? Everything was breaking, he was breaking, the fabric of his reality unraveling at the speed of light and he didn’t know how to stop it.

  
It wouldn’t matter if I did know, Eduardo told himself bitterly as he collapsed in a small wooded area at the far end of a public park, He doesn’t want my help anymore. He probably never did. And as soon as the thought the words, the wave of truth crested over him.

  
Mark hadn’t wanted Eduardo’s help at all. At least not after his original donations of funds to get thefacebook off the ground. Once the ball was rolling and it was clear that Facebook was going to be something astronomical, Mark had been planning to take only a select few to the top. Apparently Eduardo hadn’t made the cut.  
It was too much to take. Eduardo forced himself up onto his knees and screamed.

  
He didn’t bother trying to restrain himself. He forced every ounce of anguish and heartbreak and betrayal to the surface and shoved it all out through his chafing vocal chords. For a moment all was agony and the sensation of one’s lungs trying to turn themselves inside out. He only stopped long enough to take a shallow breath, screeching his pain into the empty woods, the silent skies.

  
It sounded like the end of the world.

  
Eventually his screams gave way to sobbing and he curled up on the dusty ground, not really caring what happened to his clothes. He’d put them on that morning for a specific reason. Now they served no purpose at all. The thought made him cry harder. What was he going to do? How was he supposed to tell his parents that he’d been cut out of the project that had once seemed so promising? That—dear God---he’d lost his job?

  
He cringed at the thought of his Father’s face when he heard the news. The elder Saverin had warned his son countless times about embarking on business ventures with friends. He had warned Eduardo that it would not end well, but Eduardo had not listened. And look at him now. Everything he had worked so hard for, drempt so prolifically about, was as insubstantial as the dirt he was currently laying in.

  
And Eduardo? Well he just didn’t have a single damn idea what he was supposed to do now.

  
So, he did what he always did in times of trouble. He called Erica Albright.

  
She picked up on the first ring for once and greeted him with a friendly,

  
“Don’t you have a party to be at, Mr. Saverin?”  
For a moment the pain washed back over him and he couldn’t make himself speak. All he could manage was a moist, miserable groan. Erica sobered up immediately.

  
“Eduardo? What’s wrong?”

  
“He…he cut me out,” Eduardo managed.

  
“Who? What does that mean?”

  
“Mark. Mark, he-“ Eduardo sucked him a deep breath, “hekickedmeoutofFacebook.”

  
The line fell silent.

  
“Mark kicked you out,” Erica repeated.

  
“Yes”

  
“He kicked you out? Like for good?”

  
“Yes. For good. Can we please stop repeating it?” Eduardo begged, dragging his hands over his face, realizing belatedly that they were covered in dirt. Oh well.

  
“Can he do that?” Erica demanded. He could imagine her eyes turning stern and calculating.

  
“Yeah. I…the last time I was here I signed some documents that said that, if they needed to, they could dilute my shares to make room for new investors. I never imagined Mark would do this. Jesus, Erica, I’m so stupid,” Eduardo groaned, “Also I may have smashed a computer in his general direction.”

  
“Well I should fucking hope so! I would’ve smashed all his damn computers. Preferably into his face,” she sounded pissed now, “So they wrote you out of the company completely?”

 

“Well, not completely. I still technically have some shares.”

  
“How many?”

  
Eduardo sighed, determined that he was not going to start crying again. That wasn’t going to do him any good.

  
“.03%” he muttered. The number was hanging above his head, burned behind his eyelids, taunting him.

  
Erica gasped,

  
“Oh, that’s low. That’s disgusting, actually. They couldn’t have made it a clean break?”

  
“I feel like that little bonus was Sean’s idea,” Eduardo admitted. As soon as he said it he knew it was true. If Mark had wanted him out of Facebook he would have cut him out completely. Then let him know in an e-mail, preferably, to avoid the messiness of personal contact. Although, as Eduardo thought back to the cryptic text messages he had been sent the night before, maybe Mark had tried that. Somehow that didn’t actually make it hurt any less. It was far easier to think of Mark and Sean in a dimly lit dungeon somewhere, cackling manically as they plotted his demise. It was too confusing to consider any other possibility right now.

  
“God, Wardo,” Erica sighed, “I’m so sorry. I mean it.”

  
Eduardo coiled a little tighter around himself. It was starting to get dark.

  
“What do I do?” he whispered.

  
“Come back to Boston,” she replied immediately.

  
“I can’t. I… I have to tell my parents. I…Erica how am I supposed to tell my parents about this? My father is going to disown me!”

  
“No he’s not. Eduardo, we’ll figure this out, okay? Just come see me. I think we’ve proven pretty conclusively that nothing good can come of you being in California, so come home. Please, Wardo.”

  
And in that moment, lying on the ground in some random park in a state that was worlds away from where he belonged, Erica’s tiny apartment sounded like the most beautiful place in the world to him.

* * *

 

Eduardo had barely managed to even set his suitcase down next so he could knock before Erica was flinging open her apartment door and launching herself at him in the most aggressive parody of a hug Eduardo had ever experienced. He would forever blame the jet lag for the fact that she managed to slam him into the opposite wall with very little effort. That and the manic mumbling that she was pressing into his shoulder. At first Eduardo thought she might have been crying, but in actuality she was just saying “I’m going to kill that little shit” over and over.

  
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Eduardo peeled her arms away and leaned away as far as the wall would allow, “You’re what?”

  
Erica’s face was doing something terrifying. She was angry; but, Eduardo had seen her angry before. This was something more. This was the growl in her throat when she grabbed him by the collar of his coat.

  
“Get inside,” she ordered, shoving him through the door and slamming it behind her.

  
Erica’s apartment was as small as her dorm room had been and Eduardo was equally as unsure where to put himself. But Erica solved that problem by shoving him down into a recliner that had clearly seen better days and started pacing on what little floor space the living area allowed and ran her fingers through her long brown hair until they hit a snag and she had to start over at the beginning. In the back of his mind Eduardo found it endearing that Erica had picked up so many of his bad habits over the past few months. It hardly seemed relevant at the moment, but there it was.

  
“Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning. No-“ Erica cut herself off, shaking her head, “No, just tell me what you said. When you…found out. What did you do exactly?”

  
“I…I thought it was a joke or something,” Eduardo replied, trying his best to keep himself in the moment, rather than letting himself slip back into bright white lighting and the sharp crack of a hard drive splintering under his hands, “But the…the lawyers were looking at me like a cancer child and Mark was huddled in the corner and he wouldn’t look at me and Sean, that bastard was there like a…a fucking bodyguard and I didn’t know, Erica, I didn’t know what to do.”

  
Eduardo didn’t realize that his hands were shaking until Erica knelt beside him and threaded her fingers through his, resting them gently on his lap.

  
“Hey, Wardo, it’s okay. It’s over. Okay? You’re here and we’re going to figure out what to do,” She assured him, her mouth set, eyes focused.

  
Eduardo was confused,

  
“We? You…want to help me?”

  
Erica frowned slightly,

  
“Of course I do, Eduardo. I’m the one who encouraged you to go see him. Hell, I’m the one who told you to stand up to him in the first place. This is at least partly my fault. And I…I can’t see you like this, Wardo. I can’t stand it.”

  
In that moment Eduardo realized that he’d been all wrong about Erica Albright. Yes, she was very much like Mark in a lot of ways that made Eduardo’s head spin to think about. Same fierce intelligence, same dry (and occasionally tasteless) humor, even the same sly quirk of a smile when they had a clever idea, right down to the spark in the eyes. But right then, Erica was so much more that Mark had ever been. She was open, unapologetically so. So much kindness poured out of her every word that Eduardo was drowning in it, completely overwhelmed by this unprecedented act of compassion he hadn’t even had to work for.

  
“Erica,” he whispered, leaning forward in the armchair until his face was almost at the same level as hers, “I don’t understand.”

  
To her credit, Erica only rolled her eyes a little as she disengaged one of her hands from his and patted his cheek.

  
“Eduardo, I love you dearly, but you’re an idiot. What about me demanding you come see me as soon as you got home was too complicated for you?”

  
“I…I don’t know. I thought that was more of an…act of war or something.”

  
“No, dear, throwing a laptop at someone is an act of war. I’m your fucking friend. Which reminds me, you threw a laptop?”

  
The constant subject changing was making Eduardo a little dizzy. Did he mention that he had just gotten off of a series of very long flights after a series of very long days?  
“I…not really. I more just smashed it on the table and yelled at him. I did almost punch Sean Parker though.”

  
Erica let out a surprised laugh,

  
“That’s awesome, Eduardo. I wish you had. I would have paid good money to see that douchebag get his pretty face dented.”

  
Eduardo couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Sean’s face when he thought Eduardo’s fist was about to come flying at it.

  
“It’s not so pretty when he scared.”

  
“See?” Erica smiled, “Silver lining. Now, what did you say to Mark?”

  
Eduardo recounted to bitter words he’d exchanged with Mark about bad business and bad friendship and old jealousies that should have died but somehow never did. He paused before he repeated the parting words he’d spoken to his once closest and dearest friend.

  
“What? What is it?” Erica looked concerned.

  
“Nothing I just…I think I might have done something really stupid. I wasn’t thinking and it sounded good in my head…”

  
“What did you say?”

  
“I said-oh god,” Eduardo ducked his head a little, “I said ‘You better lawyer up asshole because I’m not coming back for 30%, I’m coming back for everything.’”

  
Erica let out another surprised bark of a laugh,

  
“You-holy shit-you actually said it in those exact words?”

  
Eduardo nodded and avoided meeting her eyes. It wasn’t his proudest moment, okay? It was tense and he’d wanted to walk away with SOME semblance of an upper hand. Not that he actually had one, but it had given him enough pride to walk away without completely breaking down into tears in front of the entire Facebook staff. That had to count for something.

  
“Oh, God, Wardo,” Erica sighed affectionately, “That’s…” her expression shifted, “…not actually a horrible idea.”

  
Eduardo snapped his head back up to meet her eyes,

  
“What?”

  
“Well, yeah,” Erica was turning the phrase around in her head, “I mean, it’s a little dramatic, but you were right. They didn’t do this to anyone else, just you. This was Mark punishing you for not coming when he called. He had no right to do that to you. There wouldn’t even BE a Facebook if it weren’t for you so why shouldn’t you fight back?”

  
Eduardo’s sleep-deprived brain was having a little bit of trouble processing all this information.

  
“Are you actually suggesting I sue Facebook?”

  
“No!” Erica’s eyes were sparkling now and she was practically vibrating with excitement, “I’m suggesting you sue Mark. Wardo this is perfect. This is the ultimate way to show him what a selfish monster he’s been.”

  
“By taking his money?”

  
“No, no, it’s not about the money. It’s about the process. It’s about finally having a voice he can’t ignore. He may own half the world, but not even Mark Zuckerberg can ignore a court order. Look, he’s hurt you. He’s hurt everyone. He’s basically an ego with an appetite and he doesn’t care who he plows over in his race to get what he wants and it’s time someone pointed that out. So, we hit where it hurts. His precious fucking Facebook.”

  
Eduardo stared blankly at his friend’s manic expression. She couldn’t be serious.

  
“That’s…crazy, you realize that right?”

  
Erica grinned, taking Eduardo’s face between her hands.

  
“It is crazy. It’s crazy like comparing women to farm animals, and thinking the government is spying on you while you sleep, and burning through $18,000 in a summer. Wardo, it’s crazy enough to work.”

* * *

  
Chris managed to calmly take a sip of his tea and set his mug back down without showing any kind of reaction. Ever the poised gentleman, he wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin then folded his hands on the table business-style. The twinge of anxiety in Eduardo’s stomach clenched unsettlingly. Serious Chris was easily the most terrifying variation.

  
“Well, as the head of Public Relations for Facebook let me say that you have just made my job much more difficult. And do keep in mind that my daily life usually consists of trying to make Mark Zuckerberg palatable for the general public, so that is saying quite a bit,” Chris spoke slowly. Every syllable was controlled, even his expression was blank. Eduardo bit his lower lip. He would have preferred being yelled at, honestly. He wanted to passionately defend his decision. The clipped, nothing-personal-just-business attitude had always been his father’s forte, not his own.

  
“Chris, I don’t want this to all fall on you, you know that. I realize that this makes me look like the biggest dick in the world, but I wouldn’t be doing anything this drastic if I thought I had any other choice.”

  
Chris raised one eyebrow appraisingly,

  
“How much?” he asked.

  
“I’m sorry?”

  
“How much are you planning on suing my employer for?” Chris’ voice was doing that thing where he managed to infuse each word with so much meaning that Eduardo wasn’t sure there was a safe way to answer him. He settled on the truth, shameful though it was. There wasn’t any point in lying about it now.

  
“600 million,” Eduardo replied.

  
Now both eyebrows shot up. Eduardo looked down at his lap, folding and re-folding the corner of his cloth napkin just to have something to do with his hands.

  
“Six hundred million dollars,” Chris repeated, “That’s how much his friendship meant to you?”

  
Eduardo felt the blush creeping up from his collar. There was no hiding anything from Chris. With a sudden stab of panic, he wondered if Chris had, like Erica, known how he felt for Mark all along.

  
“My lawyers are the ones who came up with the number,” Eduardo admitted, trying his best not to feel like a grade school kid who had been caught cheating on a test. I promise, it was her idea, not mine!

  
“But it was your idea to sue him,” Chris leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest, “You thought your classiest move at this junction would be to sue your best friend? Eduardo, I don’t get it.”

  
Eduardo raised his head,

  
“Chris, he kicked me out of his company, he kicked me out of the company I helped him start.”

  
Chris’ quiet incredulity had reached its limit, apparently, because he outwardly scoffed and shook his head in amazement,

  
“So you decided to go after his money? Eduardo, this is Mark we’re talking about here. Money doesn’t mean anything to him; he might not even realize he HAS 600 million dollars to be sued for!”

  
Eduardo clenched his napkin into balls in his fist to avoid slamming his hands down on the table in frustration. What didn’t Chris get it?

  
“It’s not about the money!” he exclaimed, “I just…I have to get his attention, Chris, I need him to listen to me, ONLY me for once.”

  
Chris let out a long suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose like he was warding off a headache,

  
“Oh, god, Saverin, have you ever thought of, I don’t know, calling him? Or there’s this website, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s called Facebook. People use it to communicate with one another in ways that they can’t face to face. I think you’d be a great candidate for it,” he said sarcastically. That relieved a tiny bit of Eduardo’s tension. If he was being sarcastic, he couldn’t possibly be that upset.

  
“I needed something bigger,” Eduardo admitted, “A grand gesture.”

  
Much to Eduardo’s surprise, Chris’ response was to burst out laughing. He abandoned his formal posture and let his head drop into his hands as his shoulders shook. This went on for several seconds and Eduardo began to feel a little uncomfortable. He didn’t understand what was so funny.

  
“Eduardo Saverin, the last great romantic, always going to the grand gesture,” Chris wiped his eyes, “That’s awesome, really.”

  
Eduardo glared at his friend. He wasn’t really appreciating this, especially since his heart was kind of on the line here. Chris noticed Eduardo’s expression and sobered up somewhat.

  
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make fun of you,” he explained, “It’s just…you do realize you’re talking about the guy who was so focused on getting revenge on his ex-girlfriend that he was honestly surprised that Facesmash pissed off literally every female in the greater Boston area, right? Mark doesn’t understand grand gestures. You assume that you’ll be paying back an emotional decision with an emotional response, but he doesn’t work like that. For him it will be about logistics and numbers and trying to protect his baby, just like the dilution was,” Chris leaned forward, his face completely serious and sincere once again, “Eduardo, that’s all it was. I know it was a shitty thing to do to a friend, and I’m not defending him, but Mark was trying to do what was best for his company. It’s his creation, he’s trying to protect it.”

  
Eduardo shook his head again, trying not to wince as the words “baby” and “protect” bounced off of him. Facebook was not Mark’s child no matter how much anyone joked otherwise. It was a string of code, a nonliving collection of mathematical symbols that Mark had chosen over him. And dressing it up in different words wasn’t going to make the sense of rejection and crushing humiliation hurt any less.

  
“He should have to face some consequences. I want him to recognize for once in his life that his actions hurt people. If that means I have to physically take something from him then so be it. I want him to live knowing what he’s done,” Eduardo insisted.

  
Chris’ expression turned soft and a little sad,

  
“What about you?” he asked, voice gentler, “What happens if you get your 600 million? Will you be able to live with you’ve done?”

  
I’m rather hoping that it won’t get that far, Eduardo thought to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud. He kept his eyes fixed on the room temperature cup of tea that sat abandoned in front of Chris. There was nothing to say to that, really. Living with himself later couldn’t be any worse than living with himself now: secure in the knowledge that he was a failure to his family and an easily replaceable friend. Surely there was no level of hell deeper.

  
After a few moments of thick silence, Chris cleared his throat like he’d made a decision.

  
“If this is really what you want to do, I’ll go back to the office right now and let Mark know that he’s going to have to prepare himself for a second law suit. But I want you to know that as both an employee of Facebook and as your friend, I cannot support this decision. I will side with Mark, not because I like him more than you but because I’m not a sadist and suing him is only going to hurt you more, Wardo. Mark Zuckerberg is not a man of subtle motives and yours in this case won’t serve you well. Now, are you sure?”

  
Eduardo swallowed and nodded, still unable to meet his friend’s eyes.

  
“Yes, I’m sure.” It was nearly a whisper.

  
Chris nodded sadly and stood up,

  
“All right then. I’m sorry to say that I need to go break the news to my boss. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but I suppose our lawyers will be in touch soon,” Chris threw a few dollars on the table to pay for the tea and turned to leave. At the last moment, he turned back to Eduardo and called across the relatively empty restaurant,

  
“Hey Wardo?”

  
“Yeah?” Eduardo called back.

  
“If I have to tell Mark, then you have to tell Dustin,” then he was gone.

  
The coil of anxiety in Eduardo’s stomach twisted even tighter.

* * *

  
This was it. No more crowded conference tables of lawyers, no more shiny California sunshine streaming in through the windows reminding Eduardo of distant Sau Paulo summers and just how out of his element he was in it now. No more sweating in wool suits. No more dodging the inquisitive stare of the pretty brunette lawyer on Mark’s team. No more dodging the stonewall silence of the brilliant billionaire he no longer knew from Adam.

  
This really WAS it. Erica’s plan had failed. Mark didn’t recognize Eduardo’s cry for attention any more now than he had back in the early days of the Kirkland suite. Eduardo might as well have been bringing him fresh cans of tuna and red bull for all the good his efforts had been. It was time to cut his losses and walk away. The only thing that still hung around guiltily in the back his mind was that pesky 600 million. He still couldn’t remember if that was meant to be more or less than .03 but based on the way Gretchen was smiling smugly at Sy as she spread all the papers they needed to sign out on the table, Eduardo figured it was probably supposed to be more.

  
Absently Eduardo wondered if the tension between Sy and Gretchen was a sex thing. I mean, if he was thinking about screwing the guy on the other side of the table who’s to say his lawyer wasn’t doing the same thing? Hell, SOMEBODY might as well have been getting some action out of this stupid lawsuit.

  
Okay it wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it was better than watching Mark sign away Eduardo’s last rights of communication with him. Which…didn’t actually appear to be happening? Mark was standing stock still staring at the page in front of him. He wasn’t reading it or anything. Eduardo knew well enough to tell the difference between Mark’s “concentrating on the task at hand” face and his “staring into the void thinking deep thoughts” face. This was most definitely the latter. Suddenly Mark turned to Sy.

  
“Would you mind if I spoke to Eduardo real quick?” he asked, “It’s important.”

  
Sy sighed, weary in the way of a man who had just spent the last few months of his life trying and failing to keep up with the whims of the world’s most frustrating genius. Eduardo knew the feeling. Actually, probably everyone who had ever met Mark knew the feeling.

  
“We’ve already reached a decision, Mr. Zuckerberg. It’s a little late to be trying to change his mind-“

  
“No,” Mark interrupted, “It’s not-Look I just need to talk to him about something.”

  
“Mr. Zuckerberg-“

  
“Privately.” Mark’s tone didn’t leave a lot of room for discussion. Sy heaved another sigh, more dramatic than the last, but gestured to Gretchen to accompany out of the room. She did so, albeit giving Eduardo a concerned glance. He nodded as casually as he could, given that his heart was doing its best imitation of a jackhammer trying to hack a path through his ribcage. It was pretty impressive that Gretchen had given in to Mark’s glare. Eduardo would have thought that she would have just made some snappy remark about the irony in the creator of Facebook asking for privacy and then gone on with the proceedings. But then again, maybe the past few months had shown her that Mark Zuckerberg was not a person to mess with. It was funny what money did to people. Just a few extra zeroes on a spreadsheet somewhere and a kid in a sweatshirt is the most important person in the whole entire world.

  
When the glass door clicked shut behind the lawyer’s Mark whirled to face Eduardo.

  
“Okay. There is no way those two aren’t boning, right?”

  
And sometimes the most important person in the world is secretly a 12 year old boy. Eduardo had no way to respond to that. A little because he was sort of embarrassed to have been thinking something along those same lines only moments before but significantly more so because they were literally about to sign the final agreements. Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin were no longer friends.

  
“Mark,” he spoke softly, “don’t. please.”

  
“What? I cannot possibly be the only one who sees it. Do you see the way they look at each other? I thought she was going to launch herself right across the table at him-“  
“Mark!” Eduardo raised his voice. If Mark didn’t listen to him now, after everything, then he just didn’t know how he was supposed to handle himself, “You can’t talk to me like that. Not now.”

  
That silenced Mark for a moment. He twirled his pen between his fingers in a way that reminded Eduardo of red vines and rain water and don’t tell him I said that. Eduardo wished Mark would just say whatever he wanted to say so Eduardo wouldn’t keep thinking things like that. Finally he spoke, slower than his usual breakneck speed, like he really needed these particular words to come out right.

  
“Eduardo, despite what people, and by people I mean Chris, think about me, I am not actually completely ignorant about what’s going on here.”

Eduardo shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Why did he feel like he was about to get lectured?

  
“I know that for all intents and purposes I am the world’s shittiest friend, okay? I’ve known that for years and even if I didn’t I’ve had to sit through months of you passive aggressively telling me as much. I get it. I should not have cut you out of Facebook like that, I shouldn’t have let Sean treat you like he did, and I definitely should have talked to you about my concerns before. But, you have to understand, you’re not exactly the easiest person to talk to.”

  
Eduardo was a little taken aback by how…grown up Mark sounded in that moment. In his head he still associated this business-sweatshirted billionaire with the petulant 18 year old freshman who scoffed at the idea of vegetables. He realized for the first time that the Mark standing across the table from him was an adult, a man. Also, Eduardo was difficult to talk to? Come again?

  
“Look, man,” Mark continued, “It sucks that it had to go down like this. But…it had to. If I could go back I would dilute the shares all over again.”

  
“What?” Eduardo gasped.

  
Mark pointed the pen at him,

  
“Don’t look at me like that, it was a good business decision and you know it. You don’t get it, dude, this was never about final clubs or the pissing off the Winklevii or screwing you over. It’s was about standing in the bike room of the Porcellian holding the biggest goddamn sandwich known to mankind realizing that I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I didn’t need a billion dollars or whatever to know that Facebook is going to be my life. I knew that from day one. You can hate me for being a dick to you if you want, but you can’t hate me for that.”

  
Well, fuck. That wasn’t what he was supposed to say.

  
“Wardo,” Mark sighed when the silence stretched uncomfortably long, “You made 300 grand by watching the weather channel, I know you’re not in this for the money. I’m not stupid. If you’ve got something to say to me then say it. It’s kind of your last chance.”

  
There was a buzzing in Eduardo’s ears. He wanted to cover them but suddenly his hands seemed very far away. All he could do was stare at the man in front of him helplessly. His last chance. This was it. This was what he had been waiting for all along, a chance to finally pull the man he’d loved so ardently for so long aside and make him listen…and he was struck dumb by the sight of Mark’s face. It was the first time Eduardo had truly looked at Mark since the depositions began. It surprised Eduardo to see how tired Mark looked.

  
“I loved you,” the words slipped out effortlessly then. All those years, all the tension that had been holding them back dissipated and the truth clattered to the glass table top like everything else Eduardo had given over the past weeks. He expected Mark to be shocked, but the other man just sighed, somewhat wearily, and nodded.

  
“I know,” Mark said quietly.

  
Eduardo blinked,

  
“You…know?”

  
Mark sank back into his chair,

  
“Like I said, you’re obviously not in it for the money. You never have been. I probably knew before you did, actually.”

  
The buzzing in Eduardo’s head grew louder,

  
“You…you knew? And you never said anything?” He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or embarrassed or upset. Mark clearly chose upset as his next words burst forth,

  
“Never said anything?! WHAT THE HELL DID I NOT SAY? I asked you to be my CFO, I trusted you with the future of Facebook, I asked you to come to California with me, to believe in my vision for one FUCKING summer and you didn’t listen! You never listen! Just for your edification, Mr. Saverin, when someone looks you in the eye in a dark hallway and tells you they need you, it probably means something.”

  
The room echoed in the space following Mark’s outburst. Something twinged in Eduardo’s chest, right in the middle of his sternum. There is was. The last string, the last question Eduardo had been harboring, answered at last. He braced himself for the pain, the harrowing grief that should by all rights have followed this revelation, but there was nothing.

  
Mark had loved Eduardo. Mark had expressed his love every way he’d known how and Eduardo hadn’t even noticed. Eduardo had been in New York, riding subways and ignoring phone calls and conspiring with Erica while Mark had been on the other coast, loving him and running out of ways to tell him. He hadn’t diluted Eduardo’s shares just to save Facebook. He’d done it to save himself.

  
“I’ll be the devil of the story if I have to, Eduardo,” Mark whispered, his eyes fixed on his own hands, folded tensely on the table, “Because I am tired. I just want to run my company and live my life. I need this to be over. I think I’ve given you enough of my attention.”

* * *

  
Erica was sitting on a park bench across the street when Eduardo finally emerged from the building. She was quiet, for once, waiting for him to speak first like she didn’t know how to approach him just them.

  
“Well,” he sighed as he sat down next to her, “I’m rich.”

  
Erica shrugged one shoulder. She was chewing on her bottom lip nervously, the way Mark sometimes used to do. It was out of character for her. Eduardo felt the need to fill the silence, hoping she could help make sense of the numbness that had taken over everything.

  
“Mark, he uh, told me that he knew. About how I felt about him back in the day. I guess he…he felt the same way, too.”

  
Erica nodded, watching the pedestrians of Palo Alto stride by with their shopping bags and briefcases, oblivious to the drama that had unfolded above their heads.  
“I know. He…he sent me a friend request on Facebook last night, if you can believe that.”

  
In light of everything else, Eduardo supposed he could.

  
“I only accepted with the intent to tear him a new one, but it turned into him telling me all this stuff about Harvard and you and that night you showed up at his house in the rain and it was just so much, you know? I didn’t know what to do with it.”

  
Eduardo nodded. He knew the feeling. Erica was shaking her head bitterly like she was disappointed with herself.

  
“I should have told you this morning. I could have saved you being blindsided again. But I was scared. I’ve already made your life so difficult.”

  
“Hey, hey, no,” Eduardo shushed her, looping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into a side hug, “This isn’t your fault. Honestly, I don’t think it’s anyone’s anymore. Mark…well, I just wasn’t good for him and I definitely wasn’t good for Facebook and that sucks-I mean really fucking sucks- but it would have always come to this eventually. Mark is-“ Eduardo looked up at the shining tower of glass in front of him. The citadel that Mark had built for himself, all by himself. The home he deserved to be at peace in, “-well, he’s a lot of things that I’m not. But that doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that it’s over.”

  
This speech loosened Erica up somewhat. She was resting her head on Eduardo’s shoulder now.

  
“It’s all just so surreal,” she was looking up at the Facebook building now as well, “God, Wardo, you sure know how to pick your friends.”

  
Eduardo chuckled slightly and nudged the girl at his side.

  
“I don’t know. I’ve got this one friend who’s not so bad. She likes to verbally abuse my eyebrows to an extent that probably isn’t normal, but she’s good and she’s smart and funny and isn’t afraid to call me out on my bullshit sometimes. She cares about me like no one else ever has, which is nice, even if she is unnecessarily sassy. I don’t mind her so much,” Eduardo dropped his tone to whisper in her ear, “And don’t let this get out, cause it might ruin her carefully constructed cynical reputation, but I think she likes me, too.”

  
“Oh shut up you freak,” She giggled. The general moroseness hadn’t left her tone, but at least she was smiling now.

  
The pair didn’t speak for a moment, watching the shadows stretch behind the harried businessmen racing home for dinner as the sun started to dip below the skyline. It wasn’t until she slipped her hand into his that Eduardo realized that Erica was watching him intently, her own expression serious.

  
“Eduardo,” she whispered.

  
“Yes?”

  
“I’m sorry I told you to pursue Mark. I really thought that would make you happy. And you…deserve to be happy.”

  
Eduardo couldn’t help but smile in return,

  
“I’m sorry I let your ex-boyfriend call you a bitch on the internet. What do you say we call it even?”

  
Erica’s smile returned,

  
“Aaaaaand now we’ve come full circle. You’re lucky I secretly like you, Saverin, or I’d kick your ass for bringing that up.”

  
Eduardo laughed and leapt off of the bench to avoid Erica’s mock right hook.

  
“Sure you would, Albright,” he extended his hands to help haul her off the bench as well, “Well, shall we?”

  
“Shall we what? Where DOES a young economics major newly in procession of a gazillion dollars go next?”

  
Eduardo pondered this for a moment, watching the setting sun dance in Erica’s eyes and in her hair. He grinned.

  
“Wherever his best friend wants, I think.”

  
Erica smiled, as wide as he had ever seen and slipped her arm around his waist as they started off down the sidewalk, away from the looming tower of Facebook behind them.

  
“Home,” she said, “Let’s go home.”


End file.
